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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Where is Richard Wright born?
(a) On a train as it traveled from Georgia to Maine.
(b) In the New York City Negro hospital
(c) In a log cabin located in the heart of Nebraska.
(d) On a Mississippi plantation.

2. Who is the editor of "The Primer for White Folks?"
(a) Ralph Ellison.
(b) Anonymous.
(c) Bucklin Moon.
(d) Richard Wright.

3. What does Ellison suggest as a subtitle for "Primer for White Folks?"
(a) Method for finding Peace and Harmony among the Races.
(b) Short Course on the American Negro for Those Who "Beat That Boy".
(c) Comprehensive Study of the Unruly Seas of Race.
(d) How-to book for Bigots and Innocents.

4. What does Crane die of and where?
(a) In a fierce battle on the plains of Alsace.
(b) The black plague of 1834, in London, England.
(c) Murder, on board a ship crossing the Atlantic.
(d) Tuberculosis, in the far Black Forest of Germany.

5. What three ways do Negroes in Wright's childhood survive?
(a) Accept, repress or fight.
(b) Vote, campaign, or legislate.
(c) Enjoy, relax, or savor.
(d) Embrace, celebrate, or be grateful.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Falkner understand about racial social code of the South?

2. What folk tradition does Ellison believe the black face figure grows out of?

3. Other white cultures have black face type entertainment, but what is different about American black face?

4. What does Ellison say the "Negro problem" actually is?

5. Why does Ellison choose to analyze William Falkner?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Ellison accepts the American National Book Award for "The Invisible Man" what does he say that the award is recognizing?

2. What, for Ellison, is the great shaping event of twentieth-century fiction?

3. Did Richard Wright influence Baldwin or Ellison?

4. How did a library for Negro persons emerge in Oklahoma City?

5. In "Richard Wright's blues" how does Ellison describe the blues?

6. Why does Ellison choose to write about Faulkner?

7. Why does Ellison say that the least form of segregation is the word?

8. What does the Negro say when white America holds up twentieth century fiction and say "this is the American reality?"

9. What does the phrase "beating that boy" refer to?

10. What does Ellison find so remarkable about Crane?

(see the answer keys)

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