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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. What does the author describe her friend calling her because she is late in the beginning of Chapter 3?
(a) A "nappy-headed ho."
(b) An "arrogant jerk."
(c) A "white woman."
(d) A "sister."

2. What phrase is repeated in the first of the prints displayed in Chapter 3?
(a) "Get you to Heaven."
(b) "Your memory, vessel of your feelings."
(c) "I do not always feel colored."
(d) "A past stacked among your pillows."

3. How many police cars arrived when the author's friend was harassed while babysitting for her in Chapter 1?
(a) 2.
(b) 4.
(c) 6.
(d) 10.

4. What does the author describe the passenger in her car telling her in Chapter 1?
(a) "That his wife is leaving him for the dean with whom she's been having an affair."
(b) "That his dean is making him hire a person of color when there are so many great writers out there."
(c) "He didn't care for his family or his friends."
(d) "That his work was examining race in America."

5. What word from Chapter 2 means ordinary or everyday?
(a) Elusive.
(b) Culinary.
(c) Quotidian.
(d) Arbitrary.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the author refer to "doubt" as in Chapter 1?

2. In Chapter 3, the author writes, "A friend tells you he has seen a photograph of you on the Internet and he wants to know why you look so" what?

3. The author says in Chapter 4 that "truth be told, you could no more control those sighs than" what?

4. What does the author describe buying from the cashier when out with her friend in Chapter 3?

5. What does the real estate woman repeatedly say to the author's friend when she is showing the author her house in Chapter 3?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the author describe Serena Williams in Chapter 4?

2. What theme predominates Chapter 1 of Citizen: An American Lyric?

3. Why is the friend upset about hiring an African American in Chapter 1?

4. What happens in the narrative at the Catholic school in Chapter 1?

5. What is signified and alluded to by the picture of the Rutgers women's basketball team in Chapter 3?

6. How is the theme of memory addressed in Chapter 4?

7. What theme predominates Chapter 2 of Citizen: An American Lyric?

8. What symbolism can be seen in Chapter 4?

9. What does the author suggest as a potential power in racist language in Chapter 3?

10. How does the narrator respond when called by the wrong name by a woman at work in Chapter 3?

(see the answer keys)

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