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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. How does the economist in "A Primer for Today" claim change occurs?
(a) Microeconomics.
(b) Wealth and poverty.
(c) Foreclosure.
(d) The stock market.

2. What does the historian want to know in "A Primer for Today"?
(a) Whether change happens fast or slow.
(b) Who the last ten presidents were.
(c) The future.
(d) What happened to JFK.

3. What does the poet compare the foundation of America to in "Larghetto"?
(a) A stream.
(b) A house.
(c) An ocean.
(d) A desert.

4. Where do the workers in "The Shipwright" feel they are citizens of?
(a) Europe.
(b) Italy.
(c) Earth.
(d) Asia.

5. Where does Tolson repeat the same stanzas of the poem "The Mountain Climber"?
(a) The middle and end.
(b) Never.
(c) The beginning and end.
(d) The begining and middle.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who does the skull the mountain climber finds belong to?

2. Who does the man fight for in "The Furlough"?

3. What does the mechanic in "The Shift of Gears" tell the narrator?

4. Where does the poem "The Bard of Addis Ababa" take place?

5. How does the poet describe Michael in "Old Man Michael"?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who are the bad people that Tolson mentions in his poem "Rendezvous with America," and why does he feel the need to mention them?

2. In "A Scholar Looks at an Oak," how is the black man represented?

3. Why does the teacher die in "The Gallows"?

4. How do different people view the world in "A Primer for Today"?

5. What is the meaning of the bones of both the snake and the man are left in the dessert in "The Ballad of the Rattlesnake"?

6. How does Tolson remove black men from responsibility in "Larghetto"?

7. What is the poet trying to prove in his poem "Rendezvous with America"? How does he prove this?

8. Why is it important that Tolson does not identify the race of the person who tells the story in "The Ballad of the Rattlesnake"?

9. Why does the narrator in "An Ex-Judge at the Bar" feel guilty, and how does he appease this guilt?

10. What is Tolson's final message to the reader in "Tempo di Marcia"?

(see the answer keys)

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