View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is curved beneath Big Boy's arm in "Catch"?
(a) A few extra-long pieces of wheat.
(b) The mermaid's tail.
(c) A Bible.
(d) His son's teddy bear.

2. In "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," what does the speaker say his souls has done similar to a river?
(a) Flown with anger.
(b) Grown deep.
(c) Washed everything clean.
(d) Rushed to the ocean.

3. Where did the speaker in "Late Last Night" sit and cry?
(a) On the steps.
(b) At the bank.
(c) In the garden.
(d) At the cemetary.

4. What kind of pain does the woman feel in "Strange Hurt"?
(a) A "Godlike" pain.
(b) A "silent" pain.
(c) A "queer" pain.
(d) A "heart" pain.

5. What does the speaker encourage the reader to wonder about when down by the river?
(a) The power of love.
(b) What (you) got left.
(c) How beautiful nature is.
(d) The preciousness of children.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did the speaker's mother say when life hurt her in the poem "Spirituals"?

2. Where does the speaker think the distance is between "here and there" in the poem "Border Line"?

3. What does the speaker claim people do on the sea in "Long Trip"?

4. What does the speaker say is a strong thing in "Spirituals"?

5. What is missing from the wall in "End"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Hughes write in the introduction before the poem "Sunday Morning Prophecy" begins?

2. For how long does the speaker in "Evil" plan to "keep on at it"?

3. Who is gathered up in the poem "Litany"?

4. What is the musician singing about in "The Weary Blues"?

5. What kind of imagery is most prevalent in the poems in the section "Sea and Land"?

6. What theme unites the poems in "Distance Nowhere"?

7. Why does the preacher in "Sunday Morning Prophecy" want congregants to give freely into the collection basket?

8. Why do some African-Americans have a complicated relationship with Christianity, at least as is represented in "Selected Poems of Langston Hughes"?

9. What exactly is "jazz style" poetry?

10. What are the Lincoln Prairies symbolic of in "One"?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 746 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample