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

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

3. In line 1, "footsteps of a lass" is an example of which technique?
(a) Alliteration.
(b) Onomatopoeia.
(c) Sibilance.
(d) Synesthesia.

4. Whose presence is implied in "To bend and barter at desire's call" (line 4)?
(a) Pimps.
(b) Clients.
(c) Police officers.
(d) Bystanders.

5. Which techniques are evident in line 4, "To bend and barter at desire's call"?
(a) Alliteration and personification.
(b) Euphony and alliteration.
(c) Asyndeton and euphony.
(d) Personification and asyndeton.

Short Answer Questions

1. What color does the speaker assign to the sex workers' feet?

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

3. In line 16, what word does the speaker use to describe the feet of his own race?

4. Which lines of each stanza are indented?

5. What does the expression "feet of clay" in line 15 refer to?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. Describe the form of this poem.

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

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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