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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 3: "Part Three: The Eight Pillars of Caste".

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the best definition of "heritability" as used in "The Second Pillar: Heritability"?
(a) Capable of being passed down from parent to child.
(b) Able to bind different families together.
(c) A status based on genetics.
(d) A privilege that stays within a particular family.

2. According to "Pillar Number Four: Purity versus Pollution," what did the United States use to "curate" its population (123)?
(a) Anti-miscegenation laws.
(b) Immigration policy.
(c) Laws defining status based on degree of African blood.
(d) Jim Crow laws.

3. In "Pillar Number Six: Dehumanization and Stigma," what is the best definition of the word "stigma"?
(a) The practice of separating or segregating something believed to be polluted.
(b) A set of negative beliefs attached to a particular characteristic, action, object, etc.
(c) A marking believed to indicate evil, corruption, etc.
(d) A cultural system of disguised aggressions.

4. To what Supreme Court case does Wilkerson allude in her "Pillar Number Four: Purity versus Pollution" story about the shoemaker who sued for the right to ride in the white car of the train?
(a) Marbury v. Madison.
(b) Plessy v. Ferguson.
(c) Dred Scott v. Sandford.
(d) Loving v. Virginia.

5. 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) Metonymy.
(b) Personification.
(c) Litotes.
(d) Apostrophe.

Short Answer Questions

1. Besides the caste systems in India and the United States, which other caste system does Wilkerson say that she will focus on?

2. In "Chapter Five: 'The Container We Have Built for You,'" why does Harold Hale's daughter get called into her principal's office?

3. On page 6, Wilkerson refers to white "preeminence." What quality is she referring to?

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

5. 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"?

(see the answer key)

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