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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What seriously haunts Lafeyette?
(a) Bird Leg's death
(b) the pressure to join a gang
(c) the boy who lost his legs
(d) school homework

2. What is it called when the gang members break a side window of a car at a stoplight and grab a purse or briefcase on the seat?
(a) hit and run
(b) break and take
(c) smash and grabs
(d) break and run

3. How does Pharoah work on his stutter?
(a) talking very softly
(b) using hand motions
(c) saying the words and letters slowly
(d) tongue twisters

4. Where does Pharoah go with Lafeyette and Rickey and some other friends?
(a) window shopping at discount stores on Chicago Avenue
(b) to the museum of modern art
(c) to visit Bird Leg's grave
(d) the the top of Horner Homes

5. Why do the police take the boys close to their home and drop them off with a stern warning?
(a) Mario Vera, the assistant manager, pays for the videos.
(b) Mario Vera, the assistant manager, does not press charges.
(c) Mario Vera, the assistant manager, admits he did not see them.
(d) Mario Vera, the assistant manager, demands to see their parents.

6. Why does LaJoe send the boys to stay with her mother a few miles west?
(a) to lower her food bill
(b) to let her oldest daughter return home
(c) for their safety
(d) to help her mother

7. What event caused riots in the area around the Blackhawk stadium?
(a) the death of Robert Kennedy
(b) the Chicago riots at the Democratic convention
(c) the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.
(d) the Kent State shootings

8. Why do the boys hurry home from the tracks as the sun goes down?
(a) a train is coming
(b) they might get lost
(c) their parents will be worried
(d) the area is too dangerous at night

9. Where do the larger boys play when they visit the railway tracks?
(a) on the tracks
(b) under a box car
(c) in an empty box car
(d) in the tall weeds

10. Why did the vacancy rate at Horner increase?
(a) old people kept dying off
(b) rumors of planned gentrification
(c) an increase in the number of murders
(d) a typhoid outbreak

11. Bird Leg's cousin, Rickey, is full of rage. Why?
(a) He is abused by a teacher.
(b) He cannot get into the gang.
(c) He is always getting beat up.
(d) He witnessed Bird Leg's death.

12. What does Lafeyette hear someone was doing when he got his legs run over by a train?
(a) walking on the railroad ties
(b) hopping a moving box car
(c) hunting for snakes
(d) sleeping

13. Who is the one person with whom Pharoah is comfortable?
(a) his mother LaJoe
(b) his cousin Porkchop
(c) the triplets
(d) his brother Lafeyette

14. What do the children call the Henry Horner Homes?
(a) the battleground
(b) the hole or the box
(c) the jail or the dump
(d) Hornets, the projects, or the 'jects

15. What does the racist policeman say to Lafeyette at the stadium?
(a) Black kids all belong to gangs.
(b) The white people don't have money to give to niggers.
(c) You black kids are all pushing dope.
(d) There's no room for black trash here.

Short Answer Questions

1. How old was LaJoe when she first came to the Henry Horner Projects?

2. What are two main threats to the safety of Lafeyette and Pharoah at the Henry Horner Homes?

3. What does Terrance claim loudly?

4. How is Bird Leg killed?

5. What does Pharoah worry about as he prepares for the contest?

(see the answer keys)

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