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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. What is the "Shadow" which Hollywood produces?
(a) Back alley deals with racists.
(b) Flickering films about Negros.
(c) Dark tales of slavery and oppression.
(d) An illusionary view of the world.

2. What does Ellison read in 1935 that moves and intrigues him?
(a) Voltaire's "Moliere."
(b) T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land."
(c) R. Wright's "Black Boy."
(d) Shakespeare's "Hamlet."

3. What does Jones analyze "bop" as?
(a) Cultivated blues disguised as popular culture.
(b) Misguided anger towards society.
(c) Attempt to circumvent critics.
(d) Conscious gesture of separation.

4. What race of people are allowed into Minton's?
(a) White people.
(b) Negro people.
(c) Negro musicians and white customers.
(d) Everybody is allowed in.

5. What is the final grade Jackson finished in school?
(a) Graduate degree in music.
(b) 8th.
(c) 3rd.
(d) Freshman in college.

Short Answer Questions

1. What do the three sections of "Invisible Man" represent?

2. What is Mrs. Jackson cooking in "The Way It Is?"

3. What does the drunk of legend who lives on the corner like to yell?

4. What street is Minton's on?

5. From what did Parker struggle to escape?

Short Essay Questions

1. What type of food is served at Minton's?

2. What place does "Living with Music" describe?

3. Where is the Lefargue Psychiatric Clinic located?

4. What does the mural above the bandstand at Minton's depict?

5. What does Ellison understand the term "Negro culture" to mean?

6. Why does Ellison disagree with Jones when he says "A slave cannot be a man"?

7. What type of music does the upstairs singer practice all day?

8. What does Ellison tell us about the matriarch, Mrs. Jackson, in "The Way It Is."

9. In the Paris Review (Spring 1955) Ellison was interviewed about his work as a writer. What does he say his first piece of professional writing was?

10. What was Jackson's early life like?

(see the answer keys)

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