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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 two lines of each stanza create a kind of refrain in this poem?
(a) The first and third.
(b) The fifth and sixth.
(c) The second and fourth.
(d) The first and sixth.

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

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

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

5. 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 11, "The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet."
(c) Line 9, "Through the lone night until the last snow-flake."
(d) Line 12, "Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street."

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Which lines of each stanza are indented?

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

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

5. What are the sex workers wearing on their feet?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

8. Describe the form of this poem.

(see the answer keys)

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