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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Jane’s mother do when Jane asks her to play in the story from Part I?
(a) She cries.
(b) She screams.
(c) She laughs.
(d) She runs off.

2. What does Toni Morrison refer to as the most “vulnerable member” of society in the novel’s Foreword?
(a) A male.
(b) The elderly.
(c) Children.
(d) A female.

3. Who calls Mrs. MacTeer and tells her that Claudia, Pecola and Frieda are “playing nasty” in Part II?
(a) Paula Williams.
(b) Rosemary.
(c) Miss Dunion.
(d) Ada Williams.

4. Who is described as “still trotting up and down Sixteenth Street talking to herself” in Part II?
(a) Auntie Julia.
(b) Miss Bertha.
(c) Baby Jenny.
(d) Miss Forrester.

5. How old does the narrator say she is in Part II?
(a) 15.
(b) 7.
(c) 11.
(d) 9.

6. Where is Pecola’s father when she goes to stay with the MacTeer family in Part II?
(a) In Mexico.
(b) In the hospital.
(c) In jail.
(d) In Europe.

7. How old is the narrator’s sister in Part II?
(a) 5.
(b) 13.
(c) 10.
(d) 2.

8. What do the narrator and her sister receive at the start of the school year in Part II?
(a) Brown stockings and cod liver oil.
(b) Plaid skirts and vitamins.
(c) White shirts and pencils.
(d) Black shoes and books.

9. The author describes The Bluest Eye as having begun as a bleak narrative of what in the Foreword?
(a) Physical arson.
(b) Psychological murder.
(c) Psychological rape.
(d) Physical burglary.

10. In what year does the author say The Bluest Eye began to take the form of a book in the Foreword?
(a) 1954.
(b) 1969.
(c) 1965.
(d) 1958.

11. Who owns the grocery store down the street from Pecola in Part II?
(a) Mr. Buford.
(b) Miss Dunion.
(c) Woodrow Cain.
(d) Mr. Yacobowski.

12. Where is the abandoned store that is described in Part II as “on the southeast corner of Broadway and Thirty-fifth Street”?
(a) Chicago, Illinois.
(b) Lorain, Ohio.
(c) Columbus, Ohio.
(d) Cleveland, Ohio.

13. The author states in the book’s Foreword that in constructing the narrative she did not want to do what to "the characters who trashed Pecola and contributed to her collapse"?
(a) Dehumanize them.
(b) Justify their actions.
(c) Make them into martyrs.
(d) Make them seem human.

14. Mrs. MacTeer exclaims during her diatribe in Part II, “I got about as much business with another mouth to feed as a cat has with” what?
(a) “A wheelbarrow.”
(b) “A wristwatch.”
(c) “Side pockets.”
(d) “A top hat.”

15. According to Toni Morrison in the book’s Foreword, “The extremity of Pecola's case stemmed largely from" what?
(a) “Societal pressures.”
(b) “The poorest of luck.”
(c) “A series of bad choices.”
(d) “A crippled and crippling family.”

Short Answer Questions

1. On what street had Mr. Henry been living before taking a room from the MacTeer family?

2. The narrator in Part I claims that “one must take refuge in” what?

3. The narrator in Part II says that her family’s house is “old, cold” and what color?

4. Who arrives to play with Jane at the end of the story in Part I?

5. Part I of the novel begins with a story about a girl named Jane and her brother, who is named what?

(see the answer keys)

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