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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 term did the historians referred to in "Where Do We Go from Here?" use to describe the last reversal of African-American advancement?
(a) The Fakir.
(b) The Nadir.
(c) The Fatwa.
(d) The Chasm.

2. What is the title of Phillis Wheatley's most often-anthologized poem?
(a) "To My Dear and Loving Husband."
(b) "Upon the Burning of Our House."
(c) "On Being Brought from Africa to America."
(d) "The Spider and the Fly."

3. The self-help book that the author of "Lonely in America" tries to live by within the essay says that "to become free of disappointment, one must acknowledge the obvious, then" (37) do what?
(a) Forget about it.
(b) Learn to live with it.
(c) Become familiar with its underpinnings..
(d) Embrace it.

4. How many books of Phillis Wheatley's poetry were published during her lifetime?
(a) 2.
(b) None.
(c) 1.
(d) 3.

5. Once the author of "The Weight" stopped reading James Baldwin's works in order to separate his own work from that of James Baldwin's, what is NOT one author he mentions reading voraciously?
(a) Sergei Dovlatov.
(b) Bell hooks.
(c) Ralph Ellison.
(d) Henry Dumas.

Short Answer Questions

1. What type of internship had the author of "The Weight" been completing when he had first fallen wholly in the love with James Baldwin's works?

2. What finding in the results of Jesmyn Ward's genetic testing results shocked her?

3. What is the main pastime depicted within the poem "The Tradition"?

4. What is the name of the college that the author of "'The Dear Pledges of Our Love'": A Defense of Phillis Wheatley's Husband" attended within a rural Alabama town?

5. Which family member's house in New Orleans had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and was subsequently visited by the author of "Lonely in America"?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. To what conclusion does Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah ultimately come to about the desire to "preserve things" (31)?

4. What are the elements of James Baldwin's life and character that Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah describes as being off-putting to her at one point in her life?

5. What unsettling comment does a senior editor make to Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah during the first week of her magazine internship?

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

7. 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?

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

9. 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?

10. What are the three things Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah says are the only things she knows about being black in America?

(see the answer keys)

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