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

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Mark Oswald think is one of Ryan's problems when he sings?

2. Why do people sometimes have trouble classifying Ryan's voice?

3. What does Ryan sometimes do when he gets a bad sinus infection?

4. Who wrote the play The Emperor Jones?

5. Where did Mr. Brown take Ryan to buy clothes sometimes?

Short Essay Questions

1. In Chapter 13, what does Ken Noda tell Ryan about how he will be judged as a singer because of his race?

2. What does winning the Met's competition for young singers mean for a young singer's career?

3. What happens to Ryan on the night of November 4, 2008, when Barack Obama is elected president?

4. What do Ryan's music teachers at the Governor's School think of his voice when they first hear him sing?

5. In Chapter 9, what effect does the black opera singer Eric Owens say race has on the career of opera singers?

6. Why does Mr. Brown experience conflicted feelings about religion?

7. Why does Ryan join the Latin club and deliberately start making friends with white students in school when he is released from the juvenile detention center?

8. Why does it bother Ryan so much when people ask him to sing the song Ol' Man River?

9. In Chapter 13, why is Ryan afraid he may become like the singer Terrence Coleman?

10. Why did the child piano prodigy Ken Noda abruptly stop performing piano concerts?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

As he is preparing for the second round of the Met's competition for young singers, Ryan encounters many technical challenges and setbacks in refining and enriching his operatic skills. Write an essay analyzing how Ryan chooses to deal with these challenges and his feelings of frustration as he carries out the hard work involved in cultivating his craft.

Essay Topic 2

Ryan's mother, Valerie, was offered the opportunity for a promising career in the military, but this did not come to fruition. Write an essay analyzing how Valerie's life took some turns toward the worst and how her life's path affected Ryan.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay analyzing how Ryan's relationship with his brother Adrian changed from childhood, through adolescence, and into adulthood. Make sure to cite specific examples from the text in your answer.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 931 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample