View a FREE sample

This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Rankine notice in Part I about her "banter" with strangers?
(a) She does not often fall into conversation with white men.
(b) She ends up speaking with younger people constantly.
(c) She never ends up talking with Asian people.
(d) She finds that she always ends up talking with other people working in academia.

2. Which of the following does the Notes on the State of Virginia conclude about Blacks?
(a) They are less muscular than whites.
(b) They do not reproduce as easily as whites.
(c) They require less sleep than whites.
(d) They do not have as long of a lifespan as whites.

3. What event did Rankine recall having heard about occuring on her college campus the year before she attended as a freshman?
(a) A mass shooting.
(b) A lynching.
(c) A cross burning.
(d) A police-involved killing.

4. Which object did white supremacist demonstrators in Virginia use in 2017 during rally there?
(a) Robeson flags.
(b) Swiss army knives.
(c) Tiki torches.
(d) Bakelite Flashlights.

5. What was the name of the 2017 Virginia rally of white supremacists?
(a) The New Socialist Democratic Movement.
(b) Righters are Fighters.
(c) Unite the Right.
(d) Conserve Our History.

6. What did Rankine identify as her "most corrupt thought of the year" in Part II?
(a) She wanted to find out what her supervisor really thought of her.
(b) She wondered if her daughter would get into college.
(c) She hesitated to go to her daughter's parent-teacher conference because she did not want the teacher's potential anti-Black bias to be conferred onto her daughter.
(d) She wondered if she had been passed over for a promotion because she is a Black woman.

7. What is the name for the pictures photographers used to use to gauge skin tone?
(a) Shirley Cards.
(b) White Cards.
(c) Paint Cards.
(d) Black Cards.

8. Which West Indian writer does Rankine refer to in Part I in her section about air travel?
(a) Richland Rowrey.
(b) Jondry Finland.
(c) Edward Ismal.
(d) Edouard Glissant.

9. What did police often ask Rankine and her husband when they were pulled over in New York City and New Jersey?
(a) How much money they had.
(b) Where they were going.
(c) Whether they had weapons.
(d) How they knew each other.

10. How old was Rankine when she met her husband?
(a) 25.
(b) 35.
(c) 45.
(d) 30.

11. What source does Rankine recommend for an extended argument for integration?
(a) Plato's The Cave.
(b) Toni Morrison's Beloved.
(c) Elizabeth Anderson's The Imperative of Integration.
(d) Alex Haley's Roots.

12. Which columnist and fiction writer does Rankine include a tweet from about similar racist treatment in airports in Part I?
(a) Marjorie Bearing.
(b) Roxane Gay.
(c) Jesmyn Willow.
(d) Micheline Marrow.

13. Where does Rankine begin to undertake conversation with white men who are strangers?
(a) At her university.
(b) In restaurants.
(c) On subways.
(d) In airports and on airplanes.

14. What does a white male friend of Rankine's who was recently passed over for a job tell Rankine about it?
(a) He feels he was absorbing the problems of the world, meaning he was being punished for the sins of his forefathers.
(b) He feels they offered him a lower salary because he is white.
(c) He feels as if he may never get another job again.
(d) He feels he would not have been good at the job anyway.

15. What does Rankine write is "its own form of American optimism" in Part II?
(a) The idea that everyone is free.
(b) The idea that America is a post-racial society.
(c) The idea that racism is a dynamic of youth and ignorance.
(d) The idea that elections can solve problems.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which city in Michigan suffered from lead-tainted water?

2. Which social justice activist talked often about the so-called culture of whiteness?

3. Which Florida governor used a racially charged expression, according to Rankine, when running in 2018 against a Black opponent?

4. What does Notes on the State of Virginia conclude about the memories of Blacks and whites?

5. What did the man on the plane tell Rankine he misrepresented to her in his story about his hometown?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 706 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample