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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What position was Dorothy Lee subbing in when she impressed the branch chief with her math skills and earned her permanent position in his branch?
(a) Bookkeeper.
(b) Engineer.
(c) Computer.
(d) Secretary.

2. Why did Dorothy Vaughan go to speak with the division chief of The Flight Research Division?
(a) To recommend that he hire Mary Jackson.
(b) To clarify Katherine Goble Johnson's position as a member of West Computing or as a permanent member of Flight Research.
(c) To request a raise.
(d) To discuss the way Katherine Goble Johnson had been treated by the male engineers.

3. What percentage of the world's population did NACA's chief legal counsel say was "colored" in a memo written in 1956?
(a) 75%.
(b) 80%.
(c) 55%.
(d) 46%.

4. Where was Central High School, the white school that was in the news because black students were trying to integrate it?
(a) Little Rock, Arkansas.
(b) Austin, Texas.
(c) Miami, Florida.
(d) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

5. Why was Katherine Goble Johnson unable to go to the editorial meetings?
(a) Because she was not an engineer.
(b) Because she was female.
(c) Because she was black.
(d) Because they did not pertain to her work.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did Katherine Goble Johnson gain access to the editorial meetings?

2. Why was it a challenge for black boys to enter into the All-American Soap Box Derby?

3. What did Langley's Analysis and Computation Division do?

4. Where did NASA move the space program to in anticipation of the large number of people needed to accomplish the manned orbital flight?

5. What rumor about the astronauts spread around the Hampton Institute campus?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why was Katherine Goble Johnson prohibited from attending the editorial meetings?

2. Why did the talk that Mary Jackson and Emma Jean gave to a group of girls have such a great impact on the girls?

3. Why did Katherine Goble Johnson decide not to let the engineer who walked away from her when she sat at a desk bother her?

4. Why did Melvin Butler fail to inform the engineering staff that James Williams was black?

5. In the 1950s, what made Dorothy Vaughan believe that the nature of the computers' jobs would be changing?

6. How did black families handle the closing of schools in Prince Edward due to defunding by segregationists?

7. Why did the East Computing girls laugh at Mary Jackson when she asked them where the bathroom was?

8. Why was the U.S. Army called to a school in Little Rock, Arkansas?

9. Why did Dorothy Lee regret agreeing with a reporter when she said that women had to act like ladies in the workplace?

10. What made the theoretical group an especially good place for women to work?

(see the answer keys)

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