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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. 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?

2. What emotion does Jesmyn Ward say she feels when she looks at the works collected in The Fire This Time?

3. The author of "Where Do We Go from Here?" states that "we must know deep in our bones and in our hearts that if the ancestors survived" what, "we can survive anything" (62)?

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?

5. The author of "'The Dear Pledges of Our Love'": A Defense of Phillis Wheatley's Husband" states that most of the information about Phillis Wheatley comes from a book published how many years after the poet's death?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

5. How does Carol Anderson refute the idea that the Brown vs. Board of Education decision was a complete triumph for black advancement in America?

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

7. 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?

8. What connection does Carol Anderson make between the Great Recession and the plight of modern African-Americans?

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

10. 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?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Several of the works within The Fire This Time focus on family relationships. Choose three of these works and discuss how they work together to send a larger message about race and family across the collection.

Essay Topic 2

The collection focuses on police brutality as one of the major injustices inflicted upon African-Americans. Write an essay analyzing at least two of the authors' rhetoric and attitudes concerning police brutality and how their treatments of the topic fit into the context of the other themes regarding race contained in the collection.

Essay Topic 3

Many pieces within the collection The Fire This Time include commentary about how the arts, including literature, public murals, and other forms of art, can help to heal the pain caused by racial inequality and can even act as catalysts for progress in this area. Choose three pieces that include commentary about the value of art and compare and contrast their messages regarding the arts' ability to heal an ailing society.

(see the answer keys)

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