View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Marcus, what was country music doing in the early 50s?
(a) Boring them.
(b) Making people feel better.
(c) Changing their lives.
(d) Making people think.

2. According to Marcus in "Harmonica Frank -1951," whose music caught the spirit and sound of Harmonica Frank and made it popular?
(a) Bob Dylan.
(b) Little Richard.
(c) Sam Phillips.
(d) Elvis Presley.

3. Who wrote: "You run without moving from a terror in which you cannot believe"?
(a) Robert Johnson.
(b) William Faulkner.
(c) F. Scott Fitzgerald.
(d) Greil Marcus.

4. What magazine had an article "measuring Richard Manuel for a straight-jacket" (62)?
(a) The New Yorker.
(b) Playboy.
(c) Time.
(d) Rolling Stones.

5. Who says "Instead of throwing a knapsack over your back and getting out on the highway, to learn about life, we were able to do it together. We were protected by one another"?
(a) Robert Manuel.
(b) Bobby Bland.
(c) Greil Marcus.
(d) Robbie Robertson.

6. Who sang "Fool about mah money/don't try to save"?
(a) Harmonica Frank.
(b) Elvis Presley.
(c) Little Richard.
(d) Sam Phillips.

7. Who said "I learned the words to Little Richard's songs the best I could and what I couldn't figure out didn't matter"?
(a) Ronnie Hawkins.
(b) Bo Diddley.
(c) Bob Dylan.
(d) Robbie Robertson.

8. According to Marcus in "The Band," what message did The Band originally try to get across?
(a) Beauty can come from terror.
(b) America is a disappointment.
(c) America has possibilities no one has seen yet.
(d) You cannot win when everything is against you.

9. What does Marcus claim in "The Band" is not community?
(a) Friendship.
(b) The Band.
(c) America.
(d) Family.

10. Who said "I played rock and roll before I ever heard of Elvis Presley. I saw him in Memphis before he ever made a record"?
(a) Sam Phillips.
(b) Bob Dylan.
(c) Little Richard.
(d) Harmonica Frank.

11. How did Marcus feel when Elvis was drafted?
(a) Angry.
(b) Sad.
(c) Disappointed.
(d) Relieved.

12. In the Prologue, Marcus says that the music he will discuss dramatizes what?
(a) The war.
(b) Life in the projects.
(c) The racial tensions of the time.
(d) What it means to be American.

13. What is the "old American idea" that the worried man is stuck in according to Marcus?
(a) A joint-stock world.
(b) The past as the present.
(c) Tradition before change.
(d) An innocent world.

14. Who wrote Why Are We in Vietnam?
(a) Harmonica Frank.
(b) Norman Mailer.
(c) Lyndon Johnson.
(d) Erich Segal.

15. What is ironic about rock 'n' roll and democracy?
(a) They are both individual and a community.
(b) Neither works in a specific way.
(c) Each asks people to be something better than they are.
(d) They demand work and play.

Short Answer Questions

1. What betrayal does the song "Tears of Rage" convey?

2. In "Robert Johnson - 1938," why do some of Robert Johnson's contemporaries say that Johnson sold his soul to the devil?

3. What does Marcus think the performers discussed in the Prologue have in common?

4. From what song does Marcus quote to introduce the chapter "Robert Johnson -1938"?

5. According to the critics Marcus references in "The Band," who was Robbie Robertson's "foil"?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 557 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample