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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 landlady and her husband at the boarding house tell the narrator that the big winter hotels would not open within how much time in the beginning of Chapter 5?
(a) 2 months.
(b) 1 year.
(c) 9 months.
(d) 3 weeks.

2. How does the narrator describe the chairs in the parlor at the rooming house where he arrives in the beginning of Chapter 5?
(a) Made of sturdy oak.
(b) Cane-bottomed.
(c) A vibrant red color.
(d) Falling into disrepair.

3. Who shows the narrator to a boarding house in the beginning of Chapter 5?
(a) A butcher.
(b) A minister.
(c) A judge.
(d) A policeman.

4. The narrator’s companion tells him in Chapter 4 that all of the “respectable coloured people” eat where?
(a) At the race track.
(b) At home.
(c) At the diner.
(d) At the church.

5. What city does the narrator describe as “a big, dull, red town” in Chapter 4?
(a) Biloxi.
(b) Atlanta.
(c) Knoxville.
(d) Miami.

Short Answer Questions

1. The narrator’s mother supported herself and her son by what means, according to the narrator in Chapter 1?

2. The narrator says in Chapter 5 that he picked up the cigar-maker’s habit of riding around in what on Sunday afternoons?

3. Who does the narrator say stood at the head of his list of heroes for a long time in Chapter 2?

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

5. The narrator states in Chapter 2, “In the life of every one there is a limited number of unhappy experiences which are not written upon the memory, but stamped there with” what?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How are the author’s teenage years described? For whom did he work and where?

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

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

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

6. Who is the narrator’s guide when he first arrives in Atlanta in Chapter 4? What are the narrator’s impressions of the city?

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

8. Where does the narrator begin working in Jacksonville in Chapter 5?

9. Where did James Weldon Johnson attend university? How is this institution described?

10. Into what classes does the narrator categorize African Americans in Chapter 5?

(see the answer keys)

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