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

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

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

4. What color does the speaker assign to the sex workers' feet?
(a) Gray.
(b) Black.
(c) White.
(d) Silver.

5. Which techniques are evident in line 4, "To bend and barter at desire's call"?
(a) Asyndeton and euphony.
(b) Alliteration and personification.
(c) Personification and asyndeton.
(d) Euphony and alliteration.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What does the word "shod" in line 12 refer to?

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

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

5. In line 16, what word does the speaker use to describe the feet of his own race?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Describe the form of this poem.

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

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

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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