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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Of Auntie Lindo’s daughter, Jing-Mei says “We had grown up together and shared all the closeness of two sisters squabbling over crayons and dolls. In other words, for the most part, we” what?
(a) Envied each other
(b) Pestered each other
(c) Hated each other
(d) Loved each other

2. What “magic word” as in conjuring does Jing-Mei use to describe the effect of her having said hurtful things to her mother during their fight about piano practice?
(a) Kapow
(b) Alakazam
(c) Abracadabra
(d) Voila

3. 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) Jargon
(b) Simile
(c) Onomatopoeia
(d) Metaphor

4. What complaint does Jing-Mei’s mother make about the young piano prodigy that she watches on The Ed Sullivan Show?
(a) Play note right, but doesn’t sound good! No singing sound
(b) Play wrong notes. Chords are all off
(c) Play not too good, but has character
(d) Play wrong notes and smiles without meaning to

5. Jing-Mei is surprised after her “talent-show fiasco” that her mother did not do what?
(a) Slap her
(b) Yell at her
(c) Ground her
(d) Weep

6. When Jing-Mei stands up after playing her piano solo at the talent show, she realizes what are shaking?
(a) Her legs
(b) Her shoulders
(c) Her hands
(d) Her ribs

7. Jing-Mei says of Mr. Chong when she began piano lessons that “he must have been younger than I thought, since he” what?
(a) Lived with his mother and was not yet married
(b) Had sisters that were my mother’s age
(c) Had no children and was not yet married
(d) Had two young children and a young wife

8. What does Jing-Mei do with the Chinese silk dresses she finds when sorting through her mother’s things at the end of the story?
(a) She gives them to her sister
(b) She sells them
(c) She gives them to her father
(d) She takes them home with her

9. When Jing-Mei has a revelation while staring at herself in the bathroom mirror as a child, how does she describe the girl who is staring back at her?
(a) Soft, radiant
(b) Confused, lost
(c) Angry, powerful
(d) Broken, ashamed

10. What U.S. President signed the Chinese Exclusion Act into law?
(a) Teddy Roosevelt
(b) James McCarthy
(c) Franklin D. Roosevelt
(d) Chester A. Arthur

11. Jing-Mei describes Mr. Chong when she began piano lessons with him as “very strange, always tapping his fingers to the silent music of” what?
(a) An era long passed
(b) An imaginary guitar
(c) An invisible orchestra
(d) His wife’s heartbeat

12. What word does Jing-Mei use in describing Mr. Chong’s silent instrumental compositions with a vague and dreamy character?
(a) Arpeggio
(b) Reverie
(c) Trill
(d) Staccato

13. What does Auntie Lindo’s daughter say matter-of-factly to Jing-Mei after her performance at the talent show?
(a) You should really be a singer
(b) You did a wonderful job
(c) You aren’t a genius like me
(d) You’re not as talented as you think you are

14. What musical term from the story refers to a composition for one or two instruments, typically comprised of three or four movements in contrasting forms and keys?
(a) Bass
(b) Sonata
(c) Scale
(d) Treble

15. When was the Chinese Exclusion Act signed into law?
(a) 1948
(b) 1862
(c) 1882
(d) 1915

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Jing-Mei’s mother trade with Mr. Chong so that Jing-Mei may take piano lessons from him?

2. What is the nickname that Auntie Lindo’s daughter is known by in the area where Jing-Mei grows up?

3. 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?

4. When Jing-Mei was helping her father get things in order after Jing-Mei’s mother died, she says she found “some old Chinese silk dresses, the kind with” what?

5. At the talent show where Jing-Mei makes her piano debut, she describes an eleven-year-old boy who won first prize for what performance?

(see the answer keys)

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