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

2. 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.

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

4. In line 16, what word does the speaker use to describe the feet of his own race?
(a) Prideful.
(b) Sacred.
(c) Fearful.
(d) Aching.

5. What are the sex workers wearing on their feet?
(a) Thick-soled shoes that make them appear taller.
(b) Boots meant to protect them from snow and rain.
(c) Elaborate shoes with high heels.
(d) Light shoes meant to be worn indoors.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Which line most clearly echoes the tension between "little girls" (line 5) and "prowling" (line 6)?

3. What does the word "shod" in line 12 refer to?

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

5. Which lines of each stanza are indented?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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