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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. 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 7, "Through the long night until the silver break."
(c) Line 12, "Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street."
(d) Line 9, "Through the lone night until the last snow-flake."

2. Which two lines of each stanza create a kind of refrain in this poem?
(a) The fifth and sixth.
(b) The first and third.
(c) The first and sixth.
(d) The second and fourth.

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

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

5. In lines 2 and 3, the expression "when the night lets fall/ Its veil" is an example of which technique?
(a) Simile.
(b) Personification.
(c) Paradox.
(d) Antithesis.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the first image of the sex workers, what is being emphasized?

2. What is being referred to with the expression "silver break" (line 7)?

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

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

5. Whose presence is implied in "To bend and barter at desire's call" (line 4)?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. Describe the form of this poem.

(see the answer keys)

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