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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 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.

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

3. 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) Their determination.
(d) The burden of social expectations.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

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

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

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

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. Describe the form of this poem.

(see the answer keys)

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