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

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

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

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

5. Whose presence is implied in "To bend and barter at desire's call" (line 4)?
(a) Clients.
(b) Police officers.
(c) Bystanders.
(d) Pimps.

Short Answer Questions

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

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

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

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

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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. Where is Harlem and why is it significant to the meaning 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. Describe the form of this poem.

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

(see the answer keys)

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