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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 5: "Part Five: The Consequences of Caste".

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Chapter Five: 'The Container We Have Built for You,'" why does Harold Hale's daughter get called into her principal's office?
(a) For asking to be moved to a more advanced class.
(b) For telling a teacher to call her by her last name.
(c) For holding hands with a White boy.
(d) For using walkie-talkies with her friends.

2. In "Chapter Twelve: A Scapegoat to Bear the Sins of the World," what does Wilkerson say Austin police initially said about the bomb-related death of Stephan House?
(a) It might be drug-related, or House might have accidentally blown himself up.
(b) That it was probably the work of a serial bomber.
(c) That it was likely a hate crime.
(d) That House was the probable suspect in a string of bombings.

3. In "Chapter Twenty: The Inevitable Narcissism of Caste," what term does Wilkerson introduce that refers to a white person explaining to a Black person something that the Black person has better credentials to understand?
(a) Bulldozing.
(b) Boundary-blindness.
(c) Whitesplaining.
(d) Brahmin-splaining.

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

5. What technique does Wilkerson use for the first time in the beginning of "An Old House and an Infrared Light"?
(a) Rhetorical questions.
(b) Analogy.
(c) Anecdote.
(d) First person point of view.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Wilkerson, what serves as a signal of rank within the American caste system?

2. In "Pillar Number One: Divine Will and the Laws of Nature," what is Wilkerson's central claim?

3. In "Chapter Fourteen: The Intrusion of Caste in Everyday Life," Wilkerson relays the story of a Black woman who visits a new white neighbor. What is the white neighbor's response?

4. In "Chapter Eleven: Dominant Group Status Threat and the Precarity of the Highest Rung," what does Wilkerson argue the lowest-status Whites have been given in the place of real security and opportunity?

5. Where does the word "caste" come from?

(see the answer key)

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