View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. At the very end of Part II, what statement does Rankine recall a white woman saying to her several weeks earlier?
(a) Antiracist work makes no difference.
(b) America is a post-racist society after electing a Black president.
(c) Voter suppression laws make no difference.
(d) Blacks have to get up and fight for themselves.

2. What illness did Rankine suffer and recover from?
(a) Diabetes.
(b) Breast cancer.
(c) A heart attack.
(d) Pancreatic cancer.

3. Which poet described love partially as "a close reading"?
(a) Erica Hunt.
(b) Emily Dickinson.
(c) Fabrize Fabricant.
(d) Adrienne Richardson.

4. In her poem in Part I, what does Rankine say is in her voice when she says she feels herself slowing down?
(a) Marginalization.
(b) Humor.
(c) Fear.
(d) Resignation.

5. What does Notes on the State of Virginia conclude that the Black race could not produce?
(a) A scientist.
(b) A poet.
(c) A dancer.
(d) A musician.

Short Answer Questions

1. What question does Rankine ask about white being being able to speak to their own whiteness in Part I?

2. What phrase does Rankine's seatmate on a flight in Part I say that Rankine says pulls an emergency brake in her brain?

3. Who said, "I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife?"

4. What does Rankine identify as an "idle thought" when discussing her daughter's school and the white parents there?

5. Who wrote the book The Color of Law?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is a major reason Rankine decides to go to marriage counseling with her husband?

2. What does Rankine worry about regarding the way many people - teachers included - seem to view Black children in general?

3. How does Rankine feel contemplating the overwhelmingly white parents and teachers at her daughter's school?

4. Who popularized the phrase "white privilege" and when did it begin being used more often?

5. Why does Rankine undertake a series of casual conversations with white male travelers on airplanes?

6. What is the tension for Rankine as she expresses it in her poem in Part I in the call to change?

7. What is one major event in Rankine's life that she discusses in Part II as forcing her to reassess her life as a whole?

8. In Part II, why does a white friend of Rankine's tell her she has to defend Rankine to her own white friends?

9. What are Shirley Cards?

10. What assertion that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kanavagh made in his senate confirmation hearing does Rankine take issue with in Part I?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 895 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample