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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. When legislation was finally adopted to limit the workday of enslaved persons, how long did their workday become?
(a) 9-10 hours.
(b) 18 hours.
(c) 12 hours.
(d) 14-15 hours.

2. In Wilkerson's anecdote about the house inspector, how does he "see past the plaster" (17)?
(a) By reading the blueprints.
(b) By using an x-ray machine.
(c) By using an infrared camera.
(d) By using his professional experience.

3. In what year did Alabama repeal its law against interracial marriage?
(a) 2000.
(b) 1866.
(c) 1967.
(d) 1920.

4. In "A Long-Running Play and the Emergence of Caste in America," what does Wilkerson say Americans want to dismiss as a "sad, dark chapter" of American history (43)?
(a) The Colonial treatment of Blacks.
(b) The Trump presidency.
(c) The Jim Crow era.
(d) Slavery.

5. Which leading Black intellectual corresponded with Bhimrao Ambedkar about race in America?
(a) W.E.B. Du Bois.
(b) Booker T. Washington.
(c) William Monroe Trotter.
(d) Thurgood Marshall.

Short Answer Questions

1. At what famous Alabama bridge did the police violently attack peaceful protesters on their way to Montgomery?

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

3. In "Pillar Number Eight: Inherent Superiority versus Inherent Inferiority," what is Wilkerson's central claim?

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

5. According to "The Trials of the Middle Castes: The Race to Get Under the White Tent," what caused the Supreme Court to rule that "White" means "Caucasian"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the rhetorical purpose of including the anecdote about Willie James Howard in "Pillar Number Three: Endogamy and the Control of Marriage and Mating"?

2. According to "A Long-Running Play and the Emergence of Caste in America," what was the original justification for lifetime enslavement, and how did that justification need to change as circumstances changed?

3. Summarize the analogy Wilkerson makes between the thawing of the Siberian permafrost and the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

4. How does Wilkerson use the colonial census as support for her argument about caste in colonial America?

5. In "Pillar Number Four: Purity versus Pollution," what claim does Wilkerson make about water, and how does she support her claim?

6. For what reason does Wilkerson say that race is a social concept, not a biological one?

7. According to Wilkerson, how did slavery create the conditions for American stereotypes about Black people?

8. What explanation does Wilkerson give of the origins of caste in Hindu scriptures in "Pillar Number One: Divine Will and the Laws of Nature"?

9. Explain the titular analogy in "An Old House and an Infrared Light."

10. In "Pillar Number Eight: Inherent Superiority versus Inherent Inferiority," what does Wilkerson say underlies each of the first seven "pillars" she has already described?

(see the answer keys)

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