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 kind of diploma does the character in "Graduation" get?

2. How many women are helping plan the parade in "Parade"?

3. What does the speaker compare love to in "Lament over Love"?

4. What does the speaker in "Cross" wish in regard to his mother?

5. Where does Madam dream of playing the numbers in "Madam and the Number Writer"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the stereotype of the poem "Uncle Tom" tap into?

2. What is the reader left to assume about how Madam makes money in the poems about her?

3. How are men portrayed in the poems in "Lament Over Love"?

4. What major themes are present in the poems included in "Montage of a Dream Deferred"?

5. What are three sub-themes that appear in "Note on Commercial Theater"?

6. What do both "Still Here" and "Me and the Mule" celebrate?

7. What theme unites the poems in "Name in Uphill Letters"?

8. How do the poems in "Life Is Fine" treat life's trials and tribulations?

9. What one notable thing does the poem "Daybreak" address in the "Magnolia Flowers" section that the others do not?

10. What historical figure might Madam Alberta K. Johnson be based upon?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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.

Essay Topic 2

In a well-written essay, discuss the symbolism, imagery, and diction Hughes uses in "March Moon."

Essay Topic 3

Discuss 3 rhetorical devices Hughes uses to transform the historical person Billie Holiday to the literary person in the poem of the same name.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 711 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample