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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Section 6: "Part Six: Backlash".

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Symbols of Caste," what does Wilkerson describe at the site of the bunker where Hitler died?
(a) A museum and educational center stands there now.
(b) It is frequently the site of neo-Nazi rallies and demonstrations.
(c) There is a moving monument to concentration camp victims.
(d) It has been paved over and is used as an ordinary parking lot.

2. In "Chapter Thirteen: The Insecure Alpha and the Purpose of an Underdog," what does Wilkerson's dog trainer tell her she is behaving like?
(a) A subordinate wolf.
(b) An "insecure alpha."
(c) A "lone wolf."
(d) A child.

3. On page 283 of "Chapter Twenty-Two: The Stockholm Syndrome and the Survival of the Subordinate Class," what does Wilkerson quote anthropologist Edmund Leach as saying about the lowest caste in India?
(a) "Knowledge without wisdom is adequate for the powerful."
(b) "The first moral duty is resignation and acceptance."
(c) "It is a feeling of danger."
(d) "People embrace narratives about forgiveness."

4. In "Chapter Twenty: The Inevitable Narcissism of Caste," whose work on collective narcissism does Wilkerson discuss?
(a) Sigmund Freud.
(b) Erik Erikson.
(c) Jacques Lacan.
(d) Erich Fromm.

5. In "Chapter Seventeen: On the Early Front Lines of Caste," what is the main difference between the various works that Wilkerson discusses?
(a) Their position regarding whether American does or does not have a caste system.
(b) The race of their authors.
(c) The gender of their authors.
(d) Whether or not the authors actually had first-hand experience in the system they were writing about.

Short Answer Questions

1. On page 59 of "Chapter Five: 'The Container We Have Built for You,'" when Harold Hale's daughter is about to return to school after a visit with a friend's family, what is the grandmother's response?

2. 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?

3. What is the best definition of "heritability" as used in "The Second Pillar: Heritability"?

4. 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 reference to a dowager aunt is an example of what literary technique?

5. 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?

(see the answer key)

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