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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. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 allowed voters in what part of the United States to choose to permit slavery through a popular vote?
(a) The West.
(b) The East.
(c) The North.
(d) The South.

2. Who directed the film entitled The Birth of a Nation?
(a) Elia Kazan.
(b) D.W. Griffith.
(c) Cecil B. DeMille.
(d) Victor French.

3. What was the main premise behind the theory of polygenesis?
(a) The notion that black people were a separate race from white people.
(b) The notion that every race had had its own creator.
(c) The notion that each race of people on earth should have its own leader.
(d) The notion that there was an inherent hierarchy within each racial group.

4. Samuel George Morton, the Philadelphia-based doctor and phrenologist, owned "perhaps the largest collection of" (59) what?
(a) Human skulls.
(b) Fetal pigs.
(c) Frozen organs.
(d) Surgical instruments.

5. What is another name for the Harlem Renaissance, according to Gates and other scholars?
(a) The New Negro Rebirth.
(b) The New Negro Renaissance.
(c) The New Negro Manifesto.
(d) The New Negro

Short Answer Questions

1. In what year was the "nation's first federal civil rights law" (6) enacted?

2. Benjamin Franklin Perry claimed in an 1866 newspaper article that all Africans rightfully inhabited one of which two roles?

3. For how many years has Gates considered Harvard to be his "home" (76)?

4. The Lost Cause myth developed by Edward A. Pollard was fundamentally based on what, according to Gates?

5. Francis Galton was related to Charles Darwin in what way?

Short Essay Questions

1. Discuss the cause of a particular disease Cartwright defined and his suggested treatment.

2. Describe the monogenecists' two different explanations for the dark color of African Americans' skin.

3. What two events led to the shift in Agassiz's worldview?

4. What is the significance of the years 1865 through 1877?

5. To what modern event does Gates connect the period of Redemption and why?

6. How did the institution of slavery make contact with the western part of North America?

7. Which experiences of Abraham Lincoln's does Gates cite as causing his ideas about race to evolve?

8. How did Louis Agassiz's views change over time and why is that change significant?

9. Discuss a time when Gates used of the second person point of view and the effect this use has on the reader.

10. In what way did Charles Carroll equate evolution with atheism?

(see the answer keys)

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