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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What language did Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o speak growing up?
(a) Ashanti.
(b) Hausa.
(c) Bantu.
(d) Gĩkũyũ.

2. Where did Dr. Kimanĩ Gecaũ flee to in 1982?
(a) Algeria.
(b) The Democratic Republic of Congo.
(c) Cameroon.
(d) Zimbabwe.

3. Who is quoted in Chapter 1, Part V as having said, "... the blacks ... are inferior to the whites on the endowments of both body and mind ..." (18)?
(a) Gabriel Okara.
(b) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
(c) Sir H. Rider Haggard.
(d) Thomas Jefferson.

4. When was Caitaani mutharaba-Ini published?
(a) 1989.
(b) 1978.
(c) 1980.
(d) 1975.

5. For how long was Gakaara wa Wanjaũ imprisoned for his writings in Gĩkũyũ?
(a) 8 years.
(b) 10 years.
(c) 6 years.
(d) 13 years.

6. What does the Ituĩka ceremony mark?
(a) The handing over of power from one generation to another.
(b) The onset of war.
(c) The marriage of an elder's son to a colonial daughter.
(d) The birth of the first son in a family.

7. The author states in Chapter 1, Part IV, "Language as culture is the collective memory bank of a people's" what (15)?
(a) "Perceptions of outsiders."
(b) "Suffering and domination."
(c) "Experience in history."
(d) "Family and bloodline."

8. Who wrote Catching Them Young?
(a) Thomas Jefferson.
(b) Sir H. Rider Haggard.
(c) Bob Dixon.
(d) Gabriel Okara.

9. When was Things Fall Apart published?
(a) 1982.
(b) 1962.
(c) 1969.
(d) 1959.

10. What does the word "vacillating" mean as used in Chapter 1, Part VI?
(a) Escalating.
(b) Fluctuating.
(c) Failing.
(d) De-escalating.

11. When were Kamĩrĩĩthũ and the other villages around Limuru established?
(a) The 1970s.
(b) The 1960s.
(c) The 1940s.
(d) The 1950s.

12. In the Kamĩrĩĩthũ rehearsal and production for Ngaahika Ndeenda, the author says perfection was shown to be what?
(a) Inherent.
(b) A process.
(c) Expected.
(d) Innate.

13. Who was the first Kenyan African Drama and Literature officer that oversaw the Schools Drama Festival?
(a) Léopold Sédar Senghor.
(b) Wasambo Were.
(c) Alan Paton.
(d) Obi Wali.

14. What does the word "axiomatic" mean, as used in Chapter 1, Part I?
(a) Mean-spirited.
(b) Arbitrary.
(c) Self-evident.
(d) Subjugating.

15. The author states in Chapter 1, Part V that economic and political control can never be complete or effective without what?
(a) Physical control.
(b) Mental control.
(c) Environmental control.
(d) Agricultural control.

Short Answer Questions

1. When did Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o begin writing in Gĩkũyũ?

2. What term from Chapter 1, Part VI refers to a person within a country who acts as an agent for foreign organizations engaged in investment, trade, or economic or political exploitation?

3. What is the Kenya Land and Freedom Army otherwise known as?

4. What did Sydney Portier say he had come to associate Africa with as a result of the literature he had read?

5. Whose perceptions of Africa does the author described in Chapter 1, Part V as "comparable to a land of childhood still enveloped in the dark mantle of the night as far as the development of self-conscious history was concerned" (18)?

(see the answer keys)

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