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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why does The Girl like the strike?
(a) She gets to meet many people.
(b) It gets her out of the one room apartment.
(c) She likes the snow.
(d) She gets to wear her new coat.

2. What does Mameh finally do to make extra money?
(a) Work as a roommaid in a hotel.
(b) Submit to the advances of her employer.
(c) Dance in a burlesque house.
(d) Shoplift from small stores.

3. What does Evelyn see that causes her to order the driver to stop the car?
(a) An organ grinder with a monkey.
(b) A sale on shawls.
(c) A lost puppy.
(d) A dirty-faced girl.

4. Why does Father not go to the Pole with Perry?
(a) Parts of Father's body keep on freezing each day.
(b) Father decides the whole thing is silly.
(c) Perry and Father do not get along well.
(d) Father prefers to remain with the Esquimos.

5. What does Doctorow suggest Sigmund Freud's revenge on America was?
(a) Turning Carl Jung loose on America.
(b) Destroying sex in America forever.
(c) Having so many psychiatrists in America.
(d) Sending his European students to America.

6. Where are the immigrants ushered as they enter New York Harbor?
(a) Ellis Island.
(b) Staten Island.
(c) Manhattan Island.
(d) Long Island.

7. Seeing the man who has been following her, what does Evelyn think?
(a) That he's a detective hired by her mother-in-law to follow her.
(b) That he is a fan who wants her autograph.
(c) That he's a policeman assigned to protect her.
(d) That he is a deranged man stalking her.

8. Where do Tateh and The Girl go to warm up after spending the night in the train station?
(a) A movie theater.
(b) A small cafe.
(c) A Philadelphia Department Store.
(d) A synagogue.

9. What was Freud's judgment about America?
(a) He said it was ahead of its time.
(b) He said it was a gigantic mistake.
(c) He said it had left eruope behind.
(d) He said it was a poor copy of Europe.

10. Where do the police find the mother of the baby?
(a) Inside Mother's rain barrel.
(b) Up in a tree near Mother's house.
(c) In the cellar of a house in the next block.
(d) In the railway station.

11. What happens when a woman striker is shot?
(a) The strike leaders are arrested for complicity.
(b) Tateh gets elected leader.
(c) The workers attack the police.
(d) The militia is called away.

12. What is Little Boy wishing for?
(a) A new bicycle.
(b) To go with Father to the North Pole.
(c) A new car for his family.
(d) An exciting life like Harry Houdini's.

13. What does Father see in his bathroom mirror after he returns?
(a) How fat he had become eating Esquimo food.
(b) How much stronger he looked.
(c) The gaunt, bearded face of a homeless man.
(d) How much young her looked.

14. Where does the story of RAGTIME begin?
(a) New Rochelle, New York.
(b) Manhattan, New York.
(c) Albany, New York.
(d) Brooklyn, New York.

15. What does Tateh have that finally makes them money?
(a) The Girl's new cloak and hat.
(b) The flip book he made for The Girl which he sells for $25.
(c) His art supplies.
(d) His new coat and tie.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Mother find buried in her garden?

2. What does Houdini do in Germany?

3. What is the newspaperman, Jacob Riis, writing about at this time?

4. On board the Roosevelt, how does Admiral Perry live?

5. which immigrants are sent back home?

(see the answer keys)

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