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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. How many years elapsed between the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama and the shootings at the Emanuel Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina?

2. What tragic event had occurred the week before Emily Raboteau took her family on a walk over The High Bridge?

3. From what state does Kevin Young say that his family hails?

4. Why was Michael Brown's mother Lesley McSpadden prohibited from coming close to her son's body during the time he lay in the street?

5. How old was Tamir Rice at the time he was shot and killed by Cleveland police officers?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

2. Why does Kevin Young insert "[name withheld]" rather than naming the killer responsible for the murders in Charleston?

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

4. What does the author of "Composite Pops" say that a boy must do if he is "not blessed with a father or gifted with a dynamic stand-in" (180)?

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

6. What does Kevin Young write is one of the best things about being black?

7. 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?

8. 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?

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

10. What contrast does the author of "Black and Blue" set up by using a quote from Fats Waller and a quote by Walt Whitman prior to the body of his essay?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss how the theme of expectation versus reality is explored within the collection The Fire This Time.

Essay Topic 2

Explore the motifs of fire, water, and earth present within the works collected in The Fire This Time.

Essay Topic 3

Investigate the overarching ways in which James Baldwin's life and works resonate throughout the collection The Fire This Time.

(see the answer keys)

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