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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What word from the story means coolly unconcerned, indifferent, or unexcited?
(a) Fanatical
(b) Nonchalant
(c) Impertinent
(d) Depreciatory

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

3. From what opera does Jing-Mei describe the “breasted girl with white makeup” singing from at the talent show?
(a) Guys and Dolls
(b) Madame Butterfly
(c) The Phantom of the Opera
(d) Les Miserables

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

5. 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?
(a) Little slits up the sides
(b) Golden silk thread
(c) Hand-sewn little pockets
(d) Gathers in the sleeves

6. During what years did The Ed Sullivan Show air on television?
(a) 1960-1970
(b) 1941-1960
(c) 1929-1949
(d) 1948-1971

7. Of her mother’s ambitions and her own as a child, Jing-Mei says, “I was like the Christ child lifted out of the straw manger, crying with” what?
(a) Holy indignity
(b) Judicious rage
(c) Bitter contempt
(d) Holy agony

8. How does Jing-Mei described her family’s kitchen table where she would sit after dinner with her mother during her childhood?
(a) Formica
(b) Marble
(c) Plywood
(d) Oak

9. 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?
(a) 3
(b) 4
(c) 2
(d) 1

10. What is the neighborhood called where Jing-Mei’s family lives when she’s a child?
(a) Little Italy
(b) Chinatown
(c) Nob Hill
(d) SoHo

11. “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 Atlantic
(d) The New Yorker

12. How long ago does Jing-Mei say she sent a tuner to her parents’ apartment to recondition the piano at the end of the story?
(a) Two days ago
(b) A year ago
(c) A month ago
(d) A week ago

13. What does Jing-Mei say Mr. Chong would balance on her wrists as she practiced piano so that she would keep them still?
(a) Dimes
(b) Quarters
(c) Pennies
(d) Apples

14. When does Jing-Mei say her mother came to America?
(a) 1981
(b) 1949
(c) 1960
(d) 1958

15. 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) Because I wanted to have it appraised
(c) Because I wanted to sell it
(d) For purely sentimental reasons

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following is a major theme throughout “Two Kinds”?

2. When was Shirley Temple born?

3. One of the tests that Jing-Mei’s mother gave her as she attempted to lure out the prodigy in her daughter was predicting the daily temperatures in what three cities?

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

5. What composition does the piano prodigy play by Edvard Grieg on The Ed Sullivan Show as Jing-Mei and her mother watch?

(see the answer keys)

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