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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. Who was the professor that mentored Katherine Goble Johnson while she was in college?

2. What did the "X" in the designation of an airplane signify?

3. Which Executive Order desegregated the military?

4. Why did Dorothy Vaughan sometimes put dinner on the table for her children and then walk around the block before eating?

5. Where did Mary Jackson attend college?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What observation did black leaders make concerning the events occurring in Europe during World War II?

4. Why did millions of American women lose their jobs after V-J Day?

5. Why did Miriam Mann object to the "colored computers" sign in the cafeteria?

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

7. What did some supervisors at Langley do to encourage talented female computers to remain on the job?

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

9. How did Shetterly's childhood affect the way she thought of blacks working in science, math, and engineering?

10. Why did Dorothy Vaughan work in the laundry at Camp Pickett in the summers?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Melvin Butler saw the need for hiring black women as human computers due to a shortage in the workforce created by the war. How did the way in which Butler hired the women and brought them into Langley affect how they were treated or accepted in the workplace? Cite specific examples of the practices or structures he put into place and how they influenced the way in which black women were received in the workplace.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay explaining the concept of the “Double V.” What did African American leaders mean by this term? In what ways were African American soldiers particularly affected by the Double V? How did the Double V affect African Americans working at Langley?

Essay Topic 3

Shetterly writes about the way that segregation affected black students both positively and negatively. Write an essay discussing the way segregation both helped and hindered black students. What were the negative effects? What were the positive effects?

(see the answer keys)

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