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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. How many hours a day does Jing-Mei have access to the piano at Mr. Chong’s for practice when she first begins taking lessons?
(a) 2
(b) 1
(c) 4
(d) 3

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

3. What is the name of the Schumann piece that Jing-Mei is to play at the talent show?
(a) Anita's Dance
(b) Perfectly Contended
(c) Pleading Child
(d) Peter’s Waltz

4. What refers to circular toys that are twirled around the waist, and that some of the children used at the talent show when Jing-Mei made her piano debut?
(a) Juggling balls
(b) Yo-yos
(c) Jump ropes
(d) Hula Hoops

5. What musical term from the story refers to a group of notes taken in ascending or descending order within the compass of one octave?
(a) Scale
(b) Treble
(c) Bass
(d) Sonata

Short Answer Questions

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

2. How does Jing-Mei describe her family’s television at the time when her mother watched The Ed Sullivan Show?

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

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

5. What is the name of Jing-Mei’s mother in “Two Kinds”?

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 do Suyuan Woo’s ambitions in the beginning of the story set up the central conflict in “Two Kinds”?

3. 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?

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

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

6. 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?

7. What does Jing-Mei overhear her mother saying about her to Auntie Lindo midway through the story?

8. What arrangement is made between Suyuan Woo and Mr. Chong in regards to Jing-Mei’s piano study and practice?

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

10. When does Jing-Mei’s mother first introduce to her the concept of a child prodigy?

(see the answer keys)

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