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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is Hughes' job aboard the S.S. West Hesseltine?
(a) To steer the ship.
(b) To cook for the officers.
(c) To swab the deck.
(d) To watch over the petty officers' mess and make up their staterooms.

2. How does Mary make her living?
(a) By working as a professor at the University of Kansas.
(b) By waitressing in a small diner.
(c) By cooking, cleaning, and washing for rich white families.
(d) By renting rooms to college students who went to the University of Kansas.

3. Why does Langston not like his middle-class relatives?
(a) They do not want him to visit.
(b) They are snobby and indifferent to black suffering.
(c) They are rude and disrespectful.
(d) They do not care for his mother.

4. Why does Langston purchase a new suit and coat and travel to McKeesport, Pennsylvania?
(a) That is where his mother and stepfather are living.
(b) That is where is stepbrother lives.
(c) He is visiting his father.
(d) His is doing a poetry reading there.

5. Where does Langston spend his first evening in New York?
(a) At the YMCA.
(b) At a cheap hotel.
(c) At a friend's home.
(d) With W.E.B. du Bois.

6. What do the children do one by one?
(a) They sing a solo.
(b) They approach the altar.
(c) They read a passage from the Bible.
(d) They thank their families and friends for their support.

7. That spring, where is Langston invited to spend the summer?
(a) With his father in Cleveland, Ohio.
(b) With his stepfather in Chicago, Illinois.
(c) With his father in Toluca, Mexico.
(d) With his father in Memphis, Tennessee.

8. In what activity is Hughes involved?
(a) The school Communist organization.
(b) The school basketball team.
(c) The school paper.
(d) The school band.

9. What happens when, in January, 1921, "A Negro Speaks of Rivers" is published in The Crisis?
(a) He is asked to come to Lincoln on a partial scholarship.
(b) After seeing his son's publishing success, Mr. Hughes agreed to send his son to Columbia University in New York.
(c) After seeing her son's publishing success, Langston's mother sends him to Lincoln for college.
(d) He is accepted into Columbia University with a full-ride.

10. What would Langston rather read?
(a) Historical fiction.
(b) Fiction.
(c) Science fiction.
(d) Non-fiction.

11. What does his mother do afterward?
(a) She whips him and teaches him a lesson about respecting other people's art.
(b) She begins to cry hysterically.
(c) She has him meet with the pastor.
(d) She sends him to live with his father.

12. How does Langston's father try to convince Langston to come to Mexico for the summer?
(a) He hints at getting full custody.
(b) He offers to pay his way.
(c) He will buy him a new car.
(d) He hints at an opportunity to pursue a college education.

13. Does Langston finish college at Columbia?
(a) Yes.
(b) No.
(c) No, because he transfers to NYU.
(d) No, but he attends graduate school there.

14. What does Langston do that evening?
(a) He cries himself to sleep.
(b) He writes a letter to his mother.
(c) He prays.
(d) He calls his mother.

15. Why is this summer called the 'Red Summer?'
(a) Because the summer has record high temperatures.
(b) Because the fear of Communism has spread like wildfire.
(c) Because many Chinese are moving to the country.
(d) Because of the violence against blacks that ensues in the post war environment.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why is Hughes severely hazed when he first attends Lincoln?

2. What does Langston's mother want him to do?

3. How much does Langston's meal cost him?

4. Why is Langston's summer in Toluca not a bad one?

5. Describe Hughes' family history.

(see the answer keys)

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