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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. After Jing-Mei’s performance at the talent show, she says, “We could have escaped during intermission.” What does she say “must have anchored my parents to their chairs”?
(a) A love for music
(b) Pride and some strange sense of honor
(c) A desire to not be shown up by their neighbors
(d) A need to punish me further

2. When Jing-Mei and her mother get into an argument about Jing-Mei beginning piano lessons, Jing-Mei’s mother exclaims, “If she had as much talent as she has temper, she would be” what?
(a) Easier to deal with
(b) A better daughter
(c) Famous now
(d) Rich now

3. Who does Jing-Mei tell her mother she wishes she were like as they argue about piano practice after the talent show?
(a) Her first husband
(b) Her great-grandmother
(c) Her distant cousins
(d) Her “dead” daughters

4. What nickname does Jing-Mei say she secretly gave Mr. Chong when she began taking piano lessons with him?
(a) Wicked Chong
(b) Sage Chong
(c) Old Chong
(d) Wise Chong

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Jing-Mei say she never really did while she practiced for her talent show?

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

3. In what year did the film Bright Eyes bring Shirley Temple international fame?

4. Why does Jing-Mei say she sent a tuner to recondition the piano at her parents’ house?

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

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

3. How does Jing-Mei describe the process of playing scales for Mr. Chong?

4. How does Jing-Mei describe her performance at the talent show?

5. What child star does Suyuan Woo attempt to mold her daughter into? What happens with this attempt?

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

7. How does Jing-Mei describe her life as she passed from childhood to adulthood? In what ways does she say she disappointed her mother?

8. What discovery does Jing-Mei make regarding the song she played at the talent show in the end of the story?

9. How does Suyuan Woo develop and maintain her sense of identity in the story?

10. What theme connects “Two Kinds” to the other stories in The Joy Luck Club?

(see the answer keys)

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