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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. Jing-Mei describes the fingers of Mr. Chong’s mother as feeling like what?
(a) A fat baby’s
(b) The inside of an oyster
(c) A jellyfish
(d) A dead person’s

2. What does Jing-Mei’s mother do to earn money for the family when Jing-Mei is a child?
(a) She cleans houses
(b) She teaches piano
(c) She teaches English
(d) She cooks at a hotel

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

4. What is Auntie Lindo’s husband’s name?
(a) Uncle Tin
(b) Uncle Lee
(c) Uncle Wu
(d) Uncle Tom

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

Short Answer Questions

1. At what time does Jing-Mei’s mother insist that Jing-Mei begin her piano practice following the talent show fiasco?

2. What illness did Jing-Mei’s mother contract while trying to flee China?

3. What is the name of the street that Jing-Mei’s family lives on when she is a child?

4. Where does Jing-Mei describe the piano as standing in her parents’ living room at the end of the story?

5. What color does Jing-Mei say her mother knitted sweaters in, which were also “all the colors I hated”?

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 is the most significant element of the communication and culture gaps between Jing-Mei and her mother in the story?

4. What does Jing-Mei say in defense of the performer on the Ed Sullivan Show when she is criticized by her mother? How does this defense backfire?

5. What does Jing-Mei find when she takes her bow after her performance at the talent show?

6. What does Jing-Mei discover about Mr. Chong’s disabilities as she studies with him? How does this discovery influence her actions?

7. How does Jing-Mei respond to her mother’s offer on her thirtieth birthday?

8. In what ways can the reader see early in the story that Jing-Mei’s ambitions (and her mother’s) are misplaced?

9. How do Suyuan Woo’s actions in the story encourage the wrong responses from her daughter? What effects does this have on Jing-Mei?

10. How does Suyuan Woo go about discovering her daughter’s “genius” in the beginning of the story?

(see the answer keys)

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