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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Morrison argue for extending?
(a) The study of racism.
(b) The study of African literature.
(c) The study of American literature.
(d) The study of racial interactions.

2. What is assumed about literature much of the time, in Morrison's point of view?
(a) American literature is only read by Americans.
(b) American literature is worthless for black Americans.
(c) American literature is unshaped by black presence.
(d) American literature is unshaped by slavery.

3. What does Morrison say produces work?
(a) Imagination.
(b) Relaxation.
(c) Stress.
(d) Perseverance.

4. How does Morrison feel about the scholar who deemed the term "darky" acceptable?
(a) Understanding.
(b) Distrusting.
(c) Accepting.
(d) Angry.

5. Who does Sapphira plot to rape her slave?
(a) Her son.
(b) Her brother.
(c) Her nephew.
(d) Her husband.

6. How many lectures is Playing in the Dark based on?
(a) 3.
(b) 7.
(c) 1.
(d) 5.

7. What accusations does Morrison accept the risk of when discussing studies of racism?
(a) She has never studied racism.
(b) She is racist.
(c) She has never studied literature.
(d) She has vested interest in the topic.

8. Where does Morrison teach?
(a) Harvard.
(b) Brown.
(c) UCLA.
(d) Princeton.

9. Which of the following words refers to denotative and connotative blackness that the African people have come to signify?
(a) Africanism.
(b) Black literature.
(c) African-American.
(d) Americanism.

10. What is the opposite of restrained in the dichotomy present in Morrison's book?
(a) Pure.
(b) Wicked.
(c) Anger.
(d) Benevolent.

11. Who is the author of What Maisie Knew?
(a) Henry James.
(b) Gertrude Stein.
(c) Willa Cather.
(d) Toni Morrison.

12. When did Morrison read The Words to Say It?
(a) 1990.
(b) 1983.
(c) 1988.
(d) 1978.

13. What does Morrison claim that critics do not say about Sapphira and the Slave Girl?
(a) Why it was written.
(b) Why it is a failure.
(c) Why it is successful.
(d) Why people read it.

14. What did Cardinal tell her doctor not to keep in his office?
(a) A gargoyle.
(b) A clock.
(c) A water dish for his cat.
(d) A framed photo of Louis Armstrong.

15. Which word best describes Sapphira?
(a) Intelligent.
(b) Benevolent.
(c) Desperate.
(d) Wicked.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Morrison, what do readers and writers fight for?

2. Possessed, where does Cardinal run?

3. Where were the lectures that Playing in the Dark is based on given?

4. According to Morrison, what do readers and writers struggle to interpret?

5. What notion must a writer be aware of when reading and writing?

(see the answer keys)

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