View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What part of the Mercury Project was the team that Dorothy Lee worked on responsible for?

2. What happened when Katherine Goble Johnson sat down at a desk in the Flight Research Division on her first day there?

3. How had Katherine Goble Johnson's father taught her to treat other people?

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

5. What made white computers laugh at Mary Jackson?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did Katherine and Jimmy Goble have to stay with relatives when they attended Jimmy's sister's wedding?

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

3. What happened at Moton High School that drew them into the Brown v. Board of Education case?

4. What did Americans fear when Russia launched Sputnik?

5. What happened that allowed Katherine Goble Johnson the opportunity to publish her first research report?

6. How did the governor of Virginia respond to the Brown v. Board of Education ruling and what was the result?

7. Why was there confusion about which room to place Katherine Goble Johnson's mother in when she was in the hospital?

8. Why did NASA move the space program to Houston?

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

10. How did the disbanding of West Area Computing affect Dorothy Vaughan?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

The black women that Shetterly focuses on in Hidden Figures had a great deal in common. Write an essay discussing what the women had in common and how those traits helped them to excel in their careers. What were their educational backgrounds? What were their personalities like? How did the ways in which they looked at the world help them to succeed?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 885 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample