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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. 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 Wurlitzer spinet
(b) A Steinway upright
(c) A Förster upright
(d) A Steinway grand

2. What does Jing-Mei’s mother tell her she looks like after she’s been given a bad perm at the beauty school?
(a) Raggedy Anne
(b) An orphan
(c) Negro Chinese
(d) A Cupie Doll

3. 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) Loved each other
(b) Hated each other
(c) Pestered each other
(d) Envied each other

4. The majority of the narrative of “Two Kinds” is related from what perspective?
(a) Third-person
(b) Second-person
(c) Fourth-person
(d) First-person

5. Jing-Mei describes Mr. Chong’s mother as having a particular smell about her of what?
(a) Baked apple pies and the smell of autumn
(b) Freshly mowed grass and spring
(c) A baby that had done something in its pants
(d) Fresh flowers and stale perfume

Short Answer Questions

1. Who does Jing-Mei tell her mother she wishes she were like as they argue about piano practice after the talent show?

2. 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?

3. What is the neighborhood called where Jing-Mei’s family lives when she’s a child?

4. Jing-Mei is to play a song from what Schumann opus at the talent show?

5. 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?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did critics receive The Joy Luck Club and “Two Kinds” upon publication?

2. What cultural similarities can be seen between the author’s childhood and that of Jing-Mei in “Two Kinds”?

3. What does Jing-Mei describe doing every night with her mother at the kitchen table as a child in the beginning of the story?

4. What does Jing-Mei discover about playing the piano as she begins her studies with Mr. Chong?

5. How does Jing-Mei describe Waverly Jong in the narrative? What has Waverly gained recognition through?

6. How does Jing-Mei describe the piano at her parents’ house when she returns following her mother’s death?

7. How does Jing-Mei describe the piece she is to play at the talent show? How does she describe her practice for the performance?

8. How does the concept of identity relate centrally to the conflicts in “Two Kinds”?

9. How does Jing-Mei feel about her mother’s ambitions for her at first when she is a child?

10. How does the narrative style in “Two Kinds” shift throughout the story? Why does it shift?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 970 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample