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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 state did Kiese Laymon's grandmother live and work?
(a) Alabama.
(b) Georgia.
(c) Louisiana.
(d) Mississippi.

2. To begin the essay "The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning," Claudia Rankine relates a story about a friend of hers who had just given birth to a baby boy and whose first thought upon his birth was how she could get him out of the country. This thought occurred to her even before she had performed what two actions?
(a) Potty trained him or weaned him.
(b) Checked out of the hospital or brought him home.
(c) Painted the nursery or weaned him.
(d) Named him or nursed him.

3. To what city did the author of "Black and Blue" move in 1996 in order to attend college?
(a) Austin.
(b) Orlando.
(c) New Orleans.
(d) Memphis.

4. What was the first OutKast album Kiese Laymon ever heard?
(a) Aquemini.
(b) AtLliens.
(c) Stankonia.
(d) Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik.

5. To which book of the Bible does the OutKast song "Da Art of Storytellin' (Pt. 2)" refer?
(a) Psalms.
(b) Revelations.
(c) Genesis.
(d) Job.

Short Answer Questions

1. When Kevin Young states that being black is not a feeling and is not "simply a state of mind" (109), what does he say blackness is instead?

2. What record does The High Bridge hold within New York City?

3. At what university did Kevin Young teach for five years?

4. When all flags in the United States flew at half staff after the killings at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, which state did not lower its Confederate flag on state-house grounds?

5. What musician does Kevin Young name as the most prominent example of a white person living as a black person?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the poem "Queries of Unrest" connect to the part of the collection that it opens, entitled Reckoning?

2. What event does the author of "Composite Pops" name as the one that taught him that he must be able to save himself?

3. What was the object mentioned in the very first lines of OutKast's music first heard by Kiese Laymon and why did the object's mention draw him in?

4. How is paradox employed within the poem "Queries of Unrest" and to what effect?

5. What two reasons does the author of "Know Your Rights" give for being bothered by her four-year-old son's tantrum during the family's walk to High Bridge?

6. What details does Kiese Laymon use in order to depict his grandmother's identity to the reader?

7. How does Emily Raboteau say she wishes to distinguish her role as a mother from both types of mothers depicted in the widely-circulated comic entitled "Still Two Americas"?

8. What two categories does Kevin Young say white thinking or acting out about being black almost always fall into and what example does he give for each category he names?

9. How does Garnette Cadogan misunderstand the advice of the university officials who tell him to walk only in certain areas of New Orleans after his move there to attend college?

10. What does Garnette Cadogan mean when he writes that "the way home became home" (130) during his childhood in Jamaica?

(see the answer keys)

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