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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Jing-Mei describe the look on her mother’s face when Jing-Mei looks up from her curtsey after her piano solo in the talent show?
(a) Stricken
(b) Confused
(c) Proud
(d) Joyful

2. What musical term from Jing-Mei’s piano lessons means characterized by abruptness and disconnectedness?
(a) Staccato
(b) Arpeggio
(c) Trill
(d) Reverie

3. When Jing-Mei’s mother enrolls her in piano lessons, Jing-Mei says, “I can’t play the piano. And even if I could, I wouldn’t” what?
(a) Go on TV if you paid me a million dollars
(b) Be able to play it well enough for your expectations
(c) Take lessons from Mr. Chong
(d) Play for you

4. What is the nickname that Auntie Lindo’s daughter is known by in the area where Jing-Mei grows up?
(a) Chinatown’s Littlest Chinese Chess Champion
(b) Chinatown’s Littlest “Chinatown’s Littlest Chinese Mah-jongg Champion
(c) Chinatown’s Littlest Chinese Checkers Champion
(d) Chinatown’s Littlest Chinese Swimming Star

5. What color dress does Jing-Mei describe the girl wearing that she watches playing piano on The Ed Sullivan Show with her mother?
(a) Yellow
(b) Green
(c) White
(d) Blue

6. What does Jing-Mei’s father do as they travel home after the talent show?
(a) He apologizes
(b) He slaps Jing-Mei
(c) He silently weeps
(d) He hums

7. What are the names of the families from the Joy Luck Club that come up to Jing-Mei’s mother and father after Jing-Mei’s performance at the talent show?
(a) The Woos, the Lees, and the Wilsons
(b) The Yus, the Tsings, and the Lees
(c) The Hsus, the Jongs, and the St. Clairs
(d) The Tsings, the Lees and the Hsus

8. Examine the following sentence from the narrative: “I kept thinking my fingers would adjust themselves back, like a train switching to the right track.” What literary device is used in this example?
(a) Simile
(b) Jargon
(c) Metaphor
(d) Onomatopoeia

9. What does Jing-Mei kick under her feet as her mother drags her to the piano for practice after the talent show?
(a) The bedspread
(b) Throw rugs
(c) The piano bench
(d) The cat

10. What sensation does Jing-Mei describe as she begins hitting one wrong note after another during the talent show?
(a) A burning sensation in my heart and then an inability to breathe
(b) A chill started at the top of my head and began to trickle down
(c) A shiver of excitement started in my hands and spread up my arms
(d) I felt a wave of terror and then everything went black

11. Why does Jing-Mei say she sent a tuner to recondition the piano at her parents’ house?
(a) Because I planned to play it again
(b) For purely sentimental reasons
(c) Because I wanted to sell it
(d) Because I wanted to have it appraised

12. What refers to circular toys that are twirled around the waist, and that some of the children used at the talent show when Jing-Mei made her piano debut?
(a) Hula Hoops
(b) Juggling balls
(c) Yo-yos
(d) Jump ropes

13. Of Auntie Lindo, Jing-Mei’s mother says in the beginning of the story, “Her daughter, she is only best” what?
(a) Student
(b) Tricky
(c) Chess champion
(d) At trying

14. Jing-Mei describes sitting down nightly with her mother to examine stories of child prodigies when she was a child. The first of these stories is about a boy who knows all the state capitals and most of the European countries at what age?
(a) 12
(b) 5
(c) 2
(d) 3

15. How does Jing-Mei describe her mother’s first children in the beginning of the story?
(a) Twin baby boys
(b) A boy and a girl
(c) Twin baby girls
(d) Three sons

Short Answer Questions

1. Jing-Mei says in the end of the story of her mother that she had “never found a way to ask her why she had hoped for something so large that” what “was inevitable”?

2. Jing-Mei says in the end of the story that “unlike my mother, I did not believe I could” what?

3. How many hours a day does Jing-Mei have access to the piano at Mr. Chong’s for practice when she first begins taking lessons?

4. What does Jing-Mei promise herself when she has the revelation while staring in the bathroom mirror as a child?

5. What color does Jing-Mei say her mother knitted sweaters in, which were also “all the colors I hated”?

(see the answer keys)

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