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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer 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”?

2. Jing-Mei says that as a child “sometimes the prodigy in me became impatient.” What did Jing-Mei’s inner prodigy tell her at this time?

3. What is symbolized by the second song that Jing-Mei finds in her piano workbook at the end of the story?

4. When Jing-Mei has a revelation while staring at herself in the bathroom mirror as a child, she says, “I had new thoughts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts willed with lots of” what?

5. How does Jing-Mei describe the secondhand piano that her parents bought for her?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Jing-Mei overhear her mother and Auntie Lindo talking about after she’s studied piano for a year?

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

3. How and when did the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act influence immigration in the U.S.?

4. How do Jing-Mei’s feelings about her mother’s ambitions begin to change early in the story? What causes her feelings to change?

5. How are the pressures of immigrant families depicted through the character of Suyuan Woo in “Two Kinds”?

6. How does Jing-Mei’s mother respond when Jing-Mei refuses to practice piano after the talent show?

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

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Analyze and discuss the character of Mr. Chong in “Two Kinds.” What was Mr. Chong’s profession prior to his retirement? How old does Jing-Mei perceive Mr. Chong to be? Where does Mr. Chong live? How does Mr. Chong relate to Jing-Mei?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the history of Chinese immigration in the United States. In what ways have Chinese immigrants faced different hurdles in assimilating into American or other Western cultures as immigrants? How is this seen in Jing-Mei’s family in “Two Kinds”?

Essay Topic 3

Describe and discuss the ambitions that Jing-Mei might have pursued as a child if her mother had not attempted to mold her into her own ambitions. What subjects does Jing-Mei profess interest in? In what ways might her mother have attempted to pursue these interests for her daughter?

(see the answer keys)

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