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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What musical term, taught by Mr. Chong to Jing-Mei in their lessons, means pertaining to the highest part in harmonized music?
(a) Bass
(b) Treble
(c) Sonata
(d) Scale

2. Jing-Mei says in the beginning of “Two Kinds,” “My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open” what?
(a) A hair salon
(b) A clothing store
(c) A factory
(d) A restaurant

3. What does Jing-Mei’s mother die from?
(a) Tuberculosis
(b) A brain aneurysm
(c) A car accident
(d) Cancer

4. What does Mr. Chong live in relation to Jing-Mei’s family when she’s growing up?
(a) In the basement of the apartment building
(b) Next door to Jing-Mei’s apartment on the second floor
(c) On the first floor of the apartment building
(d) On the top floor of the apartment building

5. When Jing-Mei refuses to practice piano after the talent show, she tells her mother, “Why should I? I’m not” what?
(a) Talented
(b) Your daughter
(c) You
(d) A genius

6. What musical term from the story means pertaining to the lowest part in harmonic music?
(a) Scale
(b) Bass
(c) Treble
(d) Sonata

7. What literary term refers to a short impressionistic scene that focuses on one moment or gives a trenchant impression about a character, idea, setting, or object?
(a) Prelude
(b) Parable
(c) Vignette
(d) Entrenchment

8. How old does Jing-Mei say she was when her mother told her “Of course you can be prodigy too” in the beginning of the story?
(a) 7
(b) 5
(c) 9
(d) 3

9. What answer does Jing-Mei give when her mother asks her early in the story, “What’s the capital of Finland?”
(a) Lexington
(b) Rockland
(c) Nairobi
(d) Omaha

10. What does Jing-Mei realize about the song she finds next to the one she played for the talent show at the end of the story?
(a) It is composed by Mr. Chong
(b) It is the second half of the same song
(c) It is composed by her mother
(d) It is the opposite of the previous song

11. Jing-Mei says that as a child “sometimes the prodigy in me became impatient.” What did Jing-Mei’s inner prodigy tell her at this time?
(a) I’m dying of boredom. When are we going to do something fun?
(b) If you don’t hurry up and get me out of here, I’m disappearing for good
(c) Tell her to stop making you do this. This is taking forever
(d) If I’m not on stage in a year, I’ll never get there

12. How old is the little girl on The Ed Sullivan Show that Jing-Mei and her mother watch playing piano?
(a) 16
(b) 3
(c) 9
(d) 12

13. Jing-Mei describes her childhood ambitions in the beginning of the story by comparing herself to “Cinderella stepping from her pumpkin carriage with” what type of music “filling the air”?
(a) Old-timey piano music
(b) Sparkly cartoon music
(c) Whispering music
(d) Black-and-white movie music

14. By the time that Jing-Mei is preparing to play in the talent recital, her parents have bought her what kind of secondhand piano?
(a) A Steinway grand
(b) A Förster upright
(c) A Wurlitzer spinet
(d) A Steinway upright

15. Jing-Mei describes the girl playing piano on The Ed Sullivan Show as having the sauciness of whom?
(a) John Wayne
(b) Peter Pan
(c) Shirley Temple
(d) Little Orphan Annie

Short Answer Questions

1. When was the Chinese Exclusion Act signed into law?

2. How does Jing-Mei say she felt when her time to perform her piano solo at the talent show came?

3. After Jing-Mei’s mother tells her that she has enrolled her in piano lessons, Jing-Mei says, “When my mother told me this, I felt as though I had been” what?

4. What does Jing-Mei say she mostly did do while she was practicing her music for the talent show?

5. Who is the only person applauding when Jing-Mei looks up from her curtsy at the talent show?

(see the answer keys)

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