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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 1: "Part One: Toxins in the Permafrost and Heat Rising All Around" .

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "An American Untouchable," how does the high school principal in India refer to Martin Luther King'?
(a) As a great leader.
(b) As a "Negro."
(c) As an "American Gandhi."
(d) As an "untouchable."

2. According to Wilkerson, what serves as a signal of rank within the American caste system?
(a) Education.
(b) Wealth.
(c) Religion.
(d) Race.

3. In the page 15 sentence "An old house is its own kind of devotional, a dowager aunt with a story to be coaxed out of her," the idea that the house has a story to tell is an example of what literary technique?
(a) Personification.
(b) Metonymy.
(c) Litotes.
(d) Apostrophe.

4. On page 15, Wilkerson says of the old house that "whatever is lurking will fester." What is especially apt about her choice of the word "fester"?
(a) It has meanings that can be applied to both literal structures and to abstract structures.
(b) Its sibilance is part of an alliterative pattern.
(c) Its connotations evoke the idea of a swamp or mire.
(d) It has a lighter and more comic "sound" than the synonyms Wilkerson might have chosen.

5. What is the name of Gunnar Myrdal's 1944 study of race in America?
(a) Caste in America.
(b) The American Web of Class and Race.
(c) An American Dilemma.
(d) America's Race Problem.

Short Answer Questions

1. To what part of history does Wilkerson explicitly link the Electoral College?

2. On page 11, what does Wilkerson indicate the term "evangelical voters" is code for?

3. What technique does Wilkerson use for the first time in the beginning of "An Old House and an Infrared Light"?

4. According to Wilkerson, who is at the top of the "ladder of humanity" created by colonists in North America?

5. To whom is Wilkerson referring on page 4 when she describes someone as "a no-nonsense national figure overqualified by some estimates"?

(see the answer key)

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