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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. In what city does the author of "The Weight" meet his friend in order to visit the house in which James Baldwin died?
(a) Nice.
(b) Paris.
(c) Berlin.
(d) Lisbon.

2. How does the author of "Lonely in America" say she would likely have handled being enslaved?
(a) She would have run away.
(b) She would not have survived it.
(c) She would have developed a dissociative disorder.
(d) She would have slain her master.

3. How many years apart does the author of "The Weight" say his grandfather's age and James Baldwin's age had been?
(a) 3.
(b) 12.
(c) 7.
(d) 4.

4. The author of "White Rage" states that while before the Great Recession, white Americans had four times more wealth than black Americans, by 2010 the gap had increased to how many times?
(a) Ten times.
(b) Five times.
(c) Eight times.
(d) Six times.

5. At the end of her essay "Cracking the Code," Jesmyn Ward states that she imagines that a longing for what element had been a part of all of her ancestors' lives?
(a) The longing to be understood.
(b) The longing for independence.
(c) The longing to belong.
(d) The longing to be heard.

Short Answer Questions

1. How often do historians say lynchings of African-Americans occurred in the early decades of the twentieth century?

2. What company did Jesmyn Ward use in order to obtain a report of her genetic ancestry?

3. Who founded the college in Alabama that the author of "'The Dear Pledges of Our Love'": A Defense of Phillis Wheatley's Husband" attended?

4. In what year did Phillis Wheatley sail to London for a six week period in order to promote her poetry?

5. What does the author of "'The Dear Pledges of Our Love'": A Defense of Phillis Wheatley's Husband" state was the demographic makeup of her school in the 1970s?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Honoree Fanonne Jeffers's interpretation of "On Being Brought From Africa to America" differ from those of many scholars?

2. At the time of Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah's visit to Nice, how had her relationship with money recently changed?

3. In what ways does the author of "The Dear Pledges of Our Love: A Defense of Phillis Wheatley's Husband" demonstrate how difficult it can be to extricate oneself from the biases present within the American culture's views of black people?

4. How is Jesmyn Ward's experience of receiving her genetic ancestry results different from the experiences of her parents?

5. How does the author of "Where Do We Go from Here" evoke feelings of hope in the reader at the end of her essay?

6. What is the main claim being made regarding a Nadir within the essay "Where Do We Go from Here"?

7. What is Wendy S. Walters's central goal within the narrative of her memoir "Lonely in America" and from what source does she draw the idea for this goal?

8. What reasons does Jesmyn Ward provide for her claim that it is "impossible for most black Americans to construct full family trees" (91)?

9. What emotion does Jesmyn Ward say that she feels upon looking at all of the works within The Fire This Time and why?

10. For what purpose had Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, the author of "The Weight," come to London just before her acquaintance convinces her to visit James Baldwin's former house in France?

(see the answer keys)

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