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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 8 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In the first image of the sex workers, what is being emphasized?
(a) The motion of their bodies.
(b) Their reaction to the cold.
(c) The burden of social expectations.
(d) Their determination.

2. Which line most clearly echoes the tension between "little girls" (line 5) and "prowling" (line 6)?
(a) Line 11, "The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet."
(b) Line 12, "Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street."
(c) Line 9, "Through the lone night until the last snow-flake."
(d) Line 7, "Through the long night until the silver break."

3. Which lines of each stanza are indented?
(a) The first and third.
(b) The fifth and sixth.
(c) The first and sixth.
(d) The second and fourth.

4. What ideas are associated with the snow in this poem?
(a) Heaven, purity, and nature.
(b) Prejudice, indifference, and suffering.
(c) Circumstance, poverty, and innocence.
(d) Punishment, corruption, and justice.

5. What is being referred to with the expression "silver break" (line 7)?
(a) Headlights.
(b) Dawn.
(c) Streetlights.
(d) Reflections.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which two lines of each stanza create a kind of refrain in this poem?

2. Which techniques are evident in line 4, "To bend and barter at desire's call"?

3. In line 1, "footsteps of a lass" is an example of which technique?

4. In lines 2 and 3, the expression "when the night lets fall/ Its veil" is an example of which technique?

5. What are the sex workers wearing on their feet?

Short Essay Questions

1. Where is Harlem and why is it significant to the meaning of this poem?

2. How does the second stanza set up a contrast between dark and light?

3. What is the poem's first image, and how does it set a tone for the rest of the poem?

4. How does McKay convey the idea that these women are sex workers?

5. How does the use of the word "prowling" contrast with the poem's previous descriptions of the women?

6. What does the poem conclude is the cause of the women's choice to pursue sex work?

7. Describe the form of this poem.

8. What indications does the speaker give that he feels the sex workers' choices indicate something about all Black people in America?

(see the answer keys)

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