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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 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 11, "The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet."
(d) Line 12, "Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street."

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

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

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

5. What is being referred to with the expression "silver break" (line 7)?
(a) Streetlights.
(b) Dawn.
(c) Headlights.
(d) Reflections.

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. What ideas are associated with the snow in this poem?

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

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. Describe the form of this poem.

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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