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

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does Slim escape to from the State Workforce?

2. Why is Iceberg Slim's, or "Slim's," coke habit a secret?

3. What does Mama ask for on her deathbed?

4. Which of Slim's relatives reappears briefly in Chapter 14?

5. Where is Mama living in 1953?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Slim meets his biological father again in Chapter 14, what difference becomes clear between his father's treatment and his mother's treatment in Slim's decision to become a pimp?

2. Slim's story about the State Workforce seems a little light on truth in Chapter 18. What are some elements that seem perhaps questionable?

3. Why is image, represented by material things, so important to a pimp?

4. How does Slim's reliance on drugs catch up with him in the end of chapter 15?

5. How is Slim working and spending his days now that he's off the drugs and living in Seattle in Chapter 21?

6. How does his mother's death in Chapter 22 affect Slim's life?

7. How does the Chapter 22 title "Dawn" reflect the evolution of Slim's life at this stage?

8. Slim has two near-murder experiences in Chapter 20. Who does he nearly kill, how and why doesn't he?

9. How has Leroy been spending his years when Slim runs across him again in prison?

10. How does the relationship between Chris and Slim evolve during the 1940's in Chapter 14?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compare and contrast Steve and Slim's biological fathers. How are their influences on Slim's life and choices similar or different? Both will turn up again in Slim's life; how are those encounters different? How does Slim react to each encounter and how does he feel afterward?

Essay Topic 2

Though the epilogue to the story of Iceberg Slim's life is intended to portray Slim's thankfulness for a new lease on life and a feeling of renewal and redemption, an argument could be made that the overall tone of the book is almost nostalgic and its unapologetic approach shows no real remorse or genuine sense of misgiving for a life spent exploiting and abusing others. Describe your sense of the author's real feelings towards his life and choices. Is there a sense that his path was maybe more difficult than necessary but really not that bad since he "lived happily ever after" in the end? Is the book intended to convey a lesson or moral to the reader about ways not to live life or simply to provide catharsis for the author? Remembering that the author is a self-described psychological manipulator and professional salesman, think critically about the tone and content of the story. What appears to be the motivation of the author (beyond his overtly stated reasoning) for writing this book?

Essay Topic 3

In Beck's early years, doctors, lawyers, bankers were the only high class "Negro" society he was exposed to that looked as well or lived as well as he and his family (with Henry Upshaw). Yet apparently this did not make enough of an impression upon him to lead him to highly value education and he is thrown out of Tuskegee University for bad behavior. In the late 1920's what were the educational and professional opportunities generally available to black men, and how did this affect Beck?

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