1. After Jing-Mei’s performance at the talent show, she says, “We could have escaped during intermission.” What does she say “must have anchored my parents to their chairs”?
(a) A desire to not be shown up by their neighbors
(b) A love for music
(c) Pride and some strange sense of honor
(d) A need to punish me further

2. Jing-Mei describes Mr. Chong’s mother as having a particular smell about her of what?
(a) Fresh flowers and stale perfume
(b) A baby that had done something in its pants
(c) Baked apple pies and the smell of autumn
(d) Freshly mowed grass and spring

3. What does the phrase “Ni kan” translate to, according to the narrator?
(a) You watch
(b) Call me
(c) Listen closely
(d) Go outside

4. What does Jing-Mei’s mother do to earn money for the family when Jing-Mei is a child?
(a) She cleans houses
(b) She teaches piano
(c) She cooks at a hotel
(d) She teaches English

5. “Two Kinds” is a short story that was initially published in what periodical in February 1989?
(a) Reader’s Digest
(b) The San Franciscan
(c) The New Yorker
(d) The Atlantic

Short Answer Questions

1. Of her lack of ambitions in music, Jing-Mei says “I was so determined not to try, not to be anybody different that I learned to play only the most ear-splitting preludes, the most discordant” what?

2. Edvard Grieg is considered one of the leading composers of what era?

3. Who founded the Ripley’s Believe It or Not franchise?

4. By what name does Jing-Mei refer to Mr. Chong’s mother as in the story?

5. What color dress does Jing-Mei wear for her piano debut at the talent show?

(see the answer key)

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