View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What did the speaker do with his nickel in "Midnight Raffle"?

2. What is the drum saying to life in "Drum"?

3. What inanimate object speaks in "Heaven"?

4. In "Water-Front Streets," where does the speaker claim to carry "beauties"?

5. What does the speaker see in "Seascape"?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. What kind of feeling does "Dream Variations" help the "Afro-American Fragment" section conclude with?

5. What does the use of the word "fragment" in a poem title imply?

6. What simile is used in "Lover's Return"?

7. In "Afro-American Fragment" (the poem), what does the author imply is being fragmented?

8. Why is the "After Hours" section of "Selected Poems of Langston Hughes" named what it is?

9. What is a Black Maria?

10. Why is the speaker so surprised by his girlfriend's snoring in "Morning After"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Compare and contrast 2 poems in "Magnolia Flowers" and at least 3 rhetorical devices each uses to address life in the American South.

Essay Topic 2

Analyze Sylvester in "Sylvester's Death Bed" and discuss 1) the role(s) women play in the poem, 2) Sylvester's attitude about the women surrounding him, and 3) the meaning behind why Sylvester dies right before he is able to "hug 'em."

Essay Topic 3

Find three examples of personification in "Selected Poems of Langston Hughes" and discuss how and why Hughes uses each in the manner that he does.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 703 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample