View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What is Jing-Mei’s last name in the story?
(a) Woo
(b) Hsu
(c) Jong
(d) Chong

3. When Jing-Mei argues with her mother over piano practice after the talent show, she says, “As I said these things I got scared. I felt like” what were “crawling out of my chest”?
(a) Demons and beasts and dragons
(b) Worms and toads and slimy things
(c) The living dead and all my past
(d) Phantoms and ghosts and darkness

4. What word does Jing-Mei use to describe Auntie Lindo’s daughter in the narrative?
(a) Humble
(b) Gracious
(c) Voluptuous
(d) Snotty

5. How does Jing-Mei describe her family’s television at the time when her mother watched The Ed Sullivan Show?
(a) The TV was old and the sound kept shorting out
(b) The TV was new and the picture was clear
(c) The TV was a black and white model but had a good picture
(d) The TV was brand new but the picture was still blurry

Short Answer Questions

1. Of Auntie Lindo, Jing-Mei’s mother says in the beginning of the story, “Her daughter, she is only best” what?

2. Jing-Mei says that her mother offered to give her the piano for her birthday when she turned how old?

3. Jing-Mei soon learns after beginning her piano lessons with Mr. Chong that he is deaf. He compares himself to what composer, saying “We’re both listening only in our head”?

4. What complaint does Jing-Mei’s mother make about the young piano prodigy that she watches on The Ed Sullivan Show?

5. What does Jing-Mei say she put her mother’s jewelry in after her death at the end of the story?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are Suyuan Woo’s views of opportunity in America, as noted by the narrator in the opening of the story?

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

3. How does Jing-Mei say her perceptions differed from her mother’s in regard to ambition as she looks back at the end of the story?

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

5. How does Jing-Mei respond to her mother’s news that she will be taking piano lessons?

6. 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?

7. What offer does Jing-Mei’s mother make her approaching Jing-Mei’s thirtieth birthday?

8. In what ways does Suyuan Woo lack in communication with her daughter in the beginning of the story?

9. How does Jing-Mei describe Mr. Chong when she begins piano lessons with him? What does she secretly nickname him?

10. How does Jing-Mei describe Mr. Chong’s history in music? How does she describe her first lessons?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 920 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample