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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. How much money per week is the room that the narrator rents at the boarding house in the beginning of Chapter 5?
(a) $5.75.
(b) $3.50.
(c) $2.00.
(d) $7.95.

2. The narrator says in Chapter 5 that he picked up the cigar-maker’s habit of riding around in what on Sunday afternoons?
(a) A sailboat.
(b) A canoe.
(c) A horse cart.
(d) A hack.

3. What present does the narrator describe receiving from his father in Chapter 3?
(a) A watch.
(b) A bicycle.
(c) A fishing rod.
(d) A piano.

4. In Chapter 1, the narrator states that he is led to reveal his secret by the same impulse as what?
(a) “The unfound-out criminal.”
(b) “A blind rat.”
(c) “The doctor telling his patient he’ll die.”
(d) “A nun lost in the woods.”

5. The narrator’s landlady tells him that the average price for a music teacher within the African American community is how much in Chapter 5?
(a) $0.40.
(b) $0.25.
(c) $0.65.
(d) $0.75.

Short Answer Questions

1. The narrator claims in Chapter 1, “As I look back now I can see that I was a perfect little” what?

2. Within how much time is the narrator able to speak Spanish like a native after working at the factory in Chapter 5?

3. What term from the book refers to “the boys who pulled the long stems from the tobacco leaves”?

4. What nickname does the narrator give to the boy in his class whose face he describes as “black as night, but shone as though it was polished” in Chapter 1?

5. What habit does the narrator say he picked up on very young that “makes the piano a sympathetic, singing instrument” in Chapter 2?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is the period in which the book is set described by the author? What was life like for African Americans?

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

3. How is segregation addressed when the narrator eats his first meal in Atlanta in Chapter 4?

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

5. What popular dance does the narrator describe in Chapter 5? When did the dance develop?

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

7. How does the theme of identity apply to the novel? How does it apply to the narrator?

8. In what ways does the narrator show blindness and naiveté regarding his race?

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

10. When and where was the author of the book born and raised? How are his parents described?

(see the answer keys)

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