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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. What landmark could the author of "The Weight" see outside of the interns' office window?
(a) The Brooklyn Bridge.
(b) The Golden Gate Bridge.
(c) Times Square.
(d) The Manhattan Bridge.

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

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

4. What adjective does the writer of "The Weight" use to describe the black narrative within the United States?
(a) Problematic.
(b) Linear.
(c) Quixotic.
(d) Fractured.

5. A 2013 report by researchers at Brandeis University calculated that what fraction "of the collective wealth of African-American families was stripped away" (86) during the Great Recession?
(a) 3/4.
(b) 1/2.
(c) 2/3.
(d) 1/4.

Short Answer Questions

1. In what location did Granddaddy die within Kima Jones's poem "Homegoing, A.D."?

2. What action does the speaker of the poem "Homegoing, A.D." say that she and those with her perform "cuz gator made for water, but children born for land" (18)?

3. Whose original literary work inspired the title of The Fire This Time?

4. Who was the author of Memoir and Poems of Phyllis Wheatley, a Native African and a Slave?

5. What was the first name of Phillis Wheatley's mistress?

Short Essay Questions

1. What proof, if any, did Honoree Fanonne Jeffers discover through her research that Phillis Wheatley's 1834 biographer had been related to Susannah Wheatley, Phillis Wheatley's mistress?

2. What stories and experiences does Jesmyn Ward provide to the reader in order to demonstrate the depth of her identification with the black identity?

3. How did a quote within James Baldwin's book The Fire Next Time inspire Jesmyn ward to put together her own collection to create The Fire This Time?

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

5. 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?

6. What does Jesmyn Ward list among the issues with which black people in America are exhausted?

7. What are the examples the author of "Where Do We Go from Here" uses in order to prove that African-Americans are currently living through a second Nadir?

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

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

10. In what condition does Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah find James Baldwin's former house in France when she arrives there?

(see the answer keys)

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