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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What magazine does Ellison write music reviews for?
(a) New Yorker.
(b) Music Town Tonight.
(c) Negro Nightlife.
(d) Saturday Review.

2. Where does Charlie Christian come from?
(a) San Francisco.
(b) Oklahoma City.
(c) Topeka.
(d) Harlem.

3. What is the significance of printing Negro with a capital N?
(a) Typographical error.
(b) There is no significance.
(c) Victory for Negro people's self-definition.
(d) Dismissive category.

4. What kind of bird does Ellison say Parker is?
(a) Poor Robin.
(b) Sad Crow.
(c) Silly Turkey.
(d) Haunting Vulture.

5. Jones contends "A slave cannot be a ______" (fill in word).
(a) Communist.
(b) Intellectual.
(c) Musician.
(d) Man.

6. Where is the book review "Blues People" published and when?
(a) Saturday Review, 1945.
(b) Tukumpsee Reader, 1930.
(c) Cleveland Times, 1974.
(d) New York Review, 1964.

7. What does Charlie Christian play when he was a young child?
(a) Plastic trumpet.
(b) Cigar box banjo.
(c) Tin fiddle.
(d) Oil drum.

8. What song moves Jackson into the public eye?
(a) Der Lieberstein.
(b) Move On Up a Little Higher.
(c) Wings of a Dove.
(d) Amazing Grace.

9. What kind of radio does Ellison have?
(a) Old Nelson AM with Riddle FM tuner.
(b) Plastic transistor radio.
(c) Old Philco AM with Pilot FM tuner.
(d) Wooden American Minder with glass tubes.

10. What Hotel is Minton's part of?
(a) Hotel Barbero.
(b) Hotel LaGrand.
(c) Hotel Plaza.
(d) Hotel Cecil.

11. How did Mrs. Jackson's nephew William die?
(a) Suicide.
(b) Hit by enemy fire during a battle in France.
(c) Drugs and alcohol.
(d) Submarine torpedoes sank the ship he was working on.

12. Why does "Invisible Man" take so long to complete?
(a) No ending.
(b) Not perfect enough.
(c) Too many versions of the book.
(d) The transitions the character goes through.

13. What instrument does Henry Minton play?
(a) Bassoon.
(b) Guitar.
(c) Saxophone.
(d) Piano.

14. How does Ellison define the "understanding of art?"
(a) Depending upon one's willingness to extend one's humanity.
(b) It is not to be understood, only felt.
(c) Limited to a very few elite patrons.
(d) Created by the whims of the culture at the time.

15. What is the basic spiritual outlook of the American Negro?
(a) Pentecostal.
(b) Ontological.
(c) Protestant.
(d) Cosmological.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who are the two main characters in "Intruder in the Dust?"

2. What does Ellison read in 1935 that moves and intrigues him?

3. What is the first book Ellison ever reviews in a publication?

4. What is unique about "The Way It Is" compared to the other essays?

5. What is the "Act" Ellison refers to in the title of both the essay and the book?

(see the answer keys)

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