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

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

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

4. Which line most clearly echoes the tension between "little girls" (line 5) and "prowling" (line 6)?
(a) Line 7, "Through the long night until the silver break."
(b) Line 9, "Through the lone night until the last snow-flake."
(c) Line 12, "Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street."
(d) Line 11, "The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet."

5. What does the expression "feet of clay" in line 15 refer to?
(a) A hidden character flaw.
(b) A delicate, easily-fractured nature.
(c) Stubbornness and selfishness.
(d) Cowardice and fear.

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. In lines 2 and 3, the expression "when the night lets fall/ Its veil" is an example of which technique?

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

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. Describe the form of this poem.

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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