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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How many sons does Auntie Lindo have in the story?
(a) 3
(b) 2
(c) 1
(d) 4

2. Where does Jing-Mei find her exercise notes and secondhand music books at the end of the story?
(a) In a notebook in the basement
(b) Under her mother’s bed
(c) In the piano bench
(d) In a box in the attic

3. When Jing-Mei has a revelation while staring at herself in the bathroom mirror as a child, she says, “I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts willed with lots of” what?
(a) Hates
(b) Can’ts
(c) Don’ts
(d) Won’ts

4. 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) 5
(b) 7
(c) 9
(d) 3

5. 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) Metaphor
(c) Onomatopoeia
(d) Jargon

6. 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) His wife’s heartbeat
(c) An invisible orchestra
(d) An imaginary guitar

7. For how long does Jing-Mei say she practiced piano with Mr. Chong before she overheard her mother and Auntie Lindo bragging about their children?
(a) 2 years
(b) 5 months
(c) 1 year
(d) 4 weeks

8. Which of the following is a major theme throughout “Two Kinds”?
(a) Father-daughter relationships
(b) Political corruption
(c) Mother-daughter relationships
(d) Sister-brother rivalry

9. Jing-Mei says that her mother offered to give her the piano for her birthday when she turned how old?
(a) 25
(b) 30
(c) 40
(d) 20

10. How long ago has Jing-Mei’s mother died when she sends the tuner to recondition the piano at the end of the story?
(a) A few months ago
(b) A year ago
(c) A week ago
(d) A few years ago

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

12. 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?
(a) Seattle, Minneapolis, and New York
(b) Los Angeles, New York, and London
(c) Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles
(d) New York, Paris, and London

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

14. At the end of the story, Jing-Mei says, “After I had the piano tuned, I opened the lid and touched the keys.” How does she say it sounded?
(a) It sounded like my mother’s voice
(b) It sounded like there was a dying cat inside
(c) It sounded softer and more brittle than I remembered
(d) It sounded even richer than I remembered

15. What does Jing-Mei’s mother trade with Mr. Chong so that Jing-Mei may take piano lessons from him?
(a) Home-cooked meals
(b) Medical advice
(c) Housecleaning services
(d) Dog-walking services

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Jing-Mei say her academic career ended in “Two Kinds”?

2. 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”?

3. Of what ethnicity is the little girl on The Ed Sullivan Show that Jing-Mei and her mother watch playing piano?

4. What does Jing-Mei’s father do as they travel home after the talent show?

5. What is the name of Auntie Lindo’s daughter in the story?

(see the answer keys)

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