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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 does the narrator earn as the “reader” at the cigar factory in Chapter 5?
(a) $10.
(b) $25.
(c) $15.
(d) $8.

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

3. Who wrote the Christian allegory The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come?
(a) Mason Williams.
(b) John Bunyan.
(c) Elliot Larkin.
(d) Jacob Smith.

4. What does the narrator describe growing along the edge of the fence by the vegetable garden in Chapter 1?
(a) Huckleberries.
(b) Potatoes.
(c) Tomatoes.
(d) Blackberries.

5. The narrator says that when he was shown about the grounds of the university, he was especially interested in what building in Chapter 4?
(a) The industrial building.
(b) The library.
(c) The mathematics building.
(d) The gymnasium.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the narrator have for breakfast that is described as “so light and flaky that a fellow with any appetite at all would have no difficulty in disposing of eight or ten” in Chapter 4?

2. 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?

3. 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?

4. 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?

5. According to the narrator in Chapter 2, the two immediate results of his “forced loneliness” were finding company in books and greater pleasure in what?

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

3. How is the second Pullman car porter described by the narrator in Chapter 4?

4. What event takes place informing the narrator of his ethnic heritage in his early years? How does he react to the information?

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

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

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

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

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

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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