View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the narrator say he had a particular fondness for in his childhood in Chapter 1?
(a) Slidebars.
(b) White keys.
(c) Pedals.
(d) Black keys.

2. What does the narrator say he has never been good at because his “ideas of interpretation were always too strongly individual”?
(a) Running a business.
(b) Interpreting the Bible.
(c) Composing music.
(d) An accompanist.

3. On what day of the week does the narrator’s mother play the piano in Chapter 1?
(a) Saturday.
(b) Sunday.
(c) Friday.
(d) Wednesday.

4. What term from the book refers to “the boys who pulled the long stems from the tobacco leaves”?
(a) Rippers.
(b) Stemmers.
(c) Strippers.
(d) Gougers.

5. The narrator states in Chapter 2 that “a true artist can no more play upon the piano or violin without putting his whole body in accord with the emotions he is striving to express than a swallow can” do what?
(a) “Sing without being loud.”
(b) “Sing without melody.”
(c) “Eat without being vulnerable.”
(d) “Fly without being graceful.”

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the narrator describe under the shed in the backyard of his childhood home in Chapter 1?

2. Where does the narrator move with his mother in Chapter 1?

3. How old does the narrator say he was when he “appeared on a program with a number of adults at an entertainment given for some charitable purpose, and carried off the honors” in Chapter 2?

4. The narrator of the novel was born in a small town in what state?

5. What does the narrator describe growing along the edge of the fence by the vegetable garden in Chapter 1?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is early education like for the narrator? When does he enter public school and how is this setting described?

2. How is the first Pullman car porter described by the narrator? Where does the narrator meet him?

3. What are “slave narratives”? How are they related to the narrative of The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man?

4. To whom were African American narratives during the Reconstruction Era generally addressed? Why?

5. Who is the narrator of The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man? What secret does he discuss in Chapter 1?

6. How is the early childhood of the narrator described in Chapter 1? Where does he live?

7. How does the motif of music apply in the novel? What is the narrator’s relationship to music?

8. What elements does the novel share with the Realist Movement in literary style?

9. How does dramatic irony relate to The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man?

10. What does the narrator discover when he encounters the porter at a dance in Chapter 5?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 916 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample