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

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

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

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

5. What does the word "shod" in line 12 refer to?
(a) Sound.
(b) Clothing.
(c) Movement.
(d) Footwear.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Which lines of each stanza are indented?

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

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

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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 second stanza set up a contrast between dark and light?

8. Describe the form of this poem.

(see the answer keys)

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