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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. Whom does the narrator describe as “a bright young fellow who was himself a student” that he talks with on the train ride in Chapter 4?
(a) A horse breeder.
(b) A breeder.
(c) A Pullman car porter.
(d) A shoe shiner.

2. What does the tall man with the small, dark moustache drill a hole through in Chapter 1 as the narrator watches?
(a) A five-dollar silver piece.
(b) A five-dollar gold piece.
(c) A two-dollar silver piece.
(d) A ten-dollar gold piece.

3. Who does the narrator say stood at the head of his list of heroes for a long time in Chapter 2?
(a) Charles Darwin.
(b) King David.
(c) Christopher Columbus.
(d) Jesus.

4. By what age could the narrator play by ear all of the hymns and songs his mother knew?
(a) 4.
(b) 7.
(c) 15.
(d) 12.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. The narrator’s companion tells him in Chapter 4 that all of the “respectable coloured people” eat where?

2. The narrator says in Chapter 1 that he feels “a sort of diabolical desire to gather up all the little tragedies” of his life and turn them into what?

3. Whose schoolwork did the narrator largely complete for him, as described in Chapter 2?

4. 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?

5. How does the narrator describe the chairs in the parlor at the rooming house where he arrives in the beginning of Chapter 5?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9. Where does the narrator hide his money at the rooming house in Chapter 4? Where does he go after this?

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

(see the answer keys)

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