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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which Executive Order desegregated the military?

2. Why did the NAACP file a lawsuit against Booker T. Washington High School in Virginia?

3. How were black people expected to enter a bus due to segregation laws?

4. Why did Mary Jackson return home after her first year as a teacher?

5. Who was the man that was promoted to head the Stability Analysis section despite the fact that he had not finished college?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did designating women as "subprofessionals" help the laboratory?

2. How did the Jim Crow laws make public transportation difficult for both blacks and whites in Newport News?

3. What did Mary Winston Jackson try to teach the girls in the Girl Scouts troop that she lead?

4. Why did William Claytor create special classes just for Katherine Goble Johnson?

5. Why were Howard and Dorothy Vaughan an uneven match for one another?

6. How did the Depression affect black teachers like Dorothy Vaughan?

7. Why was it so difficult for Dorothy Vaughan to leave Farmville for her new job at Langley?

8. What does Shetterly want for the women she writes about in Hidden Figures?

9. Why was Margery Hannah considered a pariah by some of her white coworkers?

10. How did the white professors and students treat Katherine Goble Johnson when she was one of three students chosen to integrate West Virginia University?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Shetterly writes that black Americans often put limitations on themselves. What does Shetterly mean by this? What limitations did black Americans place on themselves? What was the cause? How did some of the characters in Hidden Figures fight against this self-limitation?

Essay Topic 2

Shetterly makes a case for historical events affecting the opportunities made available to African Americans and women in mathematics and science. Write an essay describing and discussing the ways in which the events occurring in the world created these opportunities. Why was it necessary to hire African American women at Langley? What demands were placed on the researchers at Langley that required additional employees? How did the civil rights movement affect the hiring and advancement of black women at Langley?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay describing and discussing the objections civil rights leaders had to the space program. What problems did they see with the space program? How did the space program relate to racial inequalities?

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