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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How many American states had laws officially prohibiting marriage between Blacks and whites?
(a) 50.
(b) 26.
(c) 12.
(d) 41.

2. When 20 Black people arrived in the New World on a Dutch ship in 1619, what were they classified as?
(a) Slaves.
(b) Colonists.
(c) Merchandise.
(d) Indentured servants.

3. On page 16, Wilkerson says that people adjust to the "idiosyncrasies" of an old house. What is she saying that they adjust to?
(a) Its peculiar or unique features.
(b) Its negative qualities.
(c) Its positive qualities.
(d) Its layout and design.

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 a lighter and more comic "sound" than the synonyms Wilkerson might have chosen.
(b) Its connotations evoke the idea of a swamp or mire.
(c) Its sibilance is part of an alliterative pattern.
(d) It has meanings that can be applied to both literal structures and to abstract structures.

5. On page 12, Wilkerson says that some contagions can only be managed with "vigilance." How is she proposing they should be managed?
(a) With great speed.
(b) With constant watchfulness.
(c) With brute force.
(d) With careful thoroughness.

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

7. In "Chapter Six: The Measure of Humanity," what does Wilkerson say we are doing when we "see" race?
(a) Perpetuating a system of oppression.
(b) Taking in only a small number of the features that actually differentiate races.
(c) Noting arbitrary physical signs that we have been taught to read as "race."
(d) Participating in a self-reinforcing cycle that causes us to "see" what we expect to see.

8. In "Chapter Six: The Measure of Humanity," what does Wilkerson say human-genome testing has revealed about race?
(a) It does not exist.
(b) There are up to 36 divisions that could be called "races."
(c) There is tremendous variation within each of the five races.
(d) It is entirely dependent on geography.

9. In "Chapter Six: The Measure of Humanity," what reason does Wilkerson give for most people's participation in the American caste system?
(a) It is human nature to want to dominate others.
(b) It allows them to discriminate without having to admit that they are racists.
(c) It is too psychologically painful to admit that one's own position is unearned.
(d) It preserves their place in the hierarchy.

10. 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) Dred Scott v. Sandford.
(b) Loving v. Virginia.
(c) Plessy v. Ferguson.
(d) Marbury v. Madison.

11. What was decided at the conference depicted in the opening of "The Nazis and the Acceleration of Caste"?
(a) The Nuremberg Laws.
(b) The Lebensraum program.
(c) The plan to exterminate German Jews.
(d) Forced sterilization of Jews.

12. What is the best definition of "endogamy" as used in "The Third Pillar: Endogamy and the Control of Marriage and Mating"?
(a) The fear of people from outside of one's own group.
(b) Active interest in and welcoming of new people into one's group.
(c) The practice of marrying within one's own group.
(d) The practice of marrying outside one's own group.

13. As Wilkerson explains on page 9, under what circumstances can mental health professionals make a diagnosis public?
(a) When the person is not a paying client.
(b) When the person presents a danger to themselves or other people.
(c) When the person is deceased.
(d) When the person is a celebrity or other national media figure.

14. In "Pillar Number One: Divine Will and the Laws of Nature," what is Wilkerson's central claim?
(a) Caste in America and in Nazi Germany contradicts fundamental precepts of Christianity.
(b) Caste systems require obvious misinterpretations of religious texts.
(c) Caste systems are the result of divine will.
(d) Caste in America and India is or was upheld by religious beliefs.

15. In "Through the Fog of Delhi to the Parallels in India and America," what is one of the main differences that Wilkerson notes between caste in America and caste in India?
(a) The American system is for the most part a binary one.
(b) Blacks in America are not permanently confined to the lowest caste.
(c) The lowest caste in India was never enslaved.
(d) There is no attempt being made in modern India to improve the situation of the lowest caste.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "A Long-Running Play and the Emergence of Caste in America," what does the Nigerian playwright tell Wilkerson about Blacks in Africa?

2. In "Pillar Number Seven: Terror as Enforcement, Cruelty as a Means of Control," what common misunderstanding of the slave system in America does Wilkerson dispute?

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

4. In "Pillar Number Five: Occupational Hierarchy: The Jatis and the Mudsill," what does Wilkerson say Blacks found when they migrated North during the Great Migration?

5. What departure from legal precedent was made in the Virginia Assembly's decision that the children of enslaved women should also be considered slaves?

(see the answer keys)

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