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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who performs first at the talent show where Jing-Mei makes her piano debut?
(a) The adults
(b) The oldest children
(c) The youngest children
(d) The trombone players

2. What does Jing-Mei say she mostly did do while she was practicing her music for the talent show?
(a) Daydreamed about being elsewhere
(b) Practiced her scales and chords
(c) Focused on the keys she was playing
(d) Listened to all the errors she made

3. When her mother offered to give her the piano for her birthday, Jing-Mei says she saw this action as what?
(a) A sign of repentance
(b) A sign of apology
(c) A sign of hope
(d) A sign of forgiveness

4. 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) Broken, ashamed
(b) Angry, powerful
(c) Soft, radiant
(d) Confused, lost

5. How does Jing-Mei describe Auntie Lindo’s smile when she looks out at the audience before beginning her piano solo at the talent show?
(a) Slivery
(b) Terse and comical
(c) Stiff-lipped
(d) Broad and happy

6. Jing-Mei says in the end of the story that “unlike my mother, I did not believe I could” what?
(a) Be talented or worthy
(b) Be anything I wanted to be
(c) Be free
(d) Overcome my heritage

7. What does Jing-Mei wear in her hair at the talent show?
(a) A yellow bow
(b) A silver crown
(c) A pink bow
(d) A gold ribbon

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

9. Describing her mother’s reaction to her hurtful words, Jing-Mei says, “she backed out of the room, stunned, as if she were blowing away like” what?
(a) A paper sack, dull and soiled
(b) A small brown leaf, thin, brittle, lifeless
(c) A wisp of hair, broken and abandoned
(d) A dandelion in the autumn sunset

10. Edvard Grieg was a composer and pianist from what country?
(a) Norway
(b) Germany
(c) France
(d) England

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

12. How many days after the talent show is it when Jing-Mei is surprised that her mother insists she practice piano?
(a) 5
(b) 3
(c) 4
(d) 2

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

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

15. What does Jing-Mei say she put her mother’s jewelry in after her death at the end of the story?
(a) Special silk pouches
(b) A box made of tin
(c) A bank vault
(d) A post office box

Short Answer Questions

1. 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?

2. When was the Magnuson Act signed into law?

3. What does Jing-Mei say Mr. Chong would balance on her wrists as she practiced piano so that she would keep them still?

4. Jing-Mei says that her mother offered to give her the piano for her birthday when she turned how old?

5. After Jing-Mei’s hair debacle where it was cut off like a boy’s, what statement does she make about her feelings of the haircut?

(see the answer keys)

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