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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 8 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which lines of each stanza are indented?
(a) The first and third.
(b) The first and sixth.
(c) The fifth and sixth.
(d) The second and fourth.

2. What does the expression "feet of clay" in line 15 refer to?
(a) Cowardice and fear.
(b) Stubbornness and selfishness.
(c) A hidden character flaw.
(d) A delicate, easily-fractured nature.

3. In lines 2 and 3, the expression "when the night lets fall/ Its veil" is an example of which technique?
(a) Antithesis.
(b) Paradox.
(c) Simile.
(d) Personification.

4. Which line most clearly echoes the tension between "little girls" (line 5) and "prowling" (line 6)?
(a) Line 12, "Are trudging, thinly shod, from street to street."
(b) Line 7, "Through the long night until the silver break."
(c) Line 9, "Through the lone night until the last snow-flake."
(d) Line 11, "The dusky, half-clad girls of tired feet."

5. Which two lines of each stanza create a kind of refrain in this poem?
(a) The first and third.
(b) The fifth and sixth.
(c) The first and sixth.
(d) The second and fourth.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which techniques are evident in line 4, "To bend and barter at desire's call"?

2. In line 16, what word does the speaker use to describe the feet of his own race?

3. What is being referred to with the expression "silver break" (line 7)?

4. What color does the speaker assign to the sex workers' feet?

5. In the first image of the sex workers, what is being emphasized?

Short Essay Questions

1. What indications does the speaker give that he feels the sex workers' choices indicate something about all Black people in America?

2. What is the poem's first image, and how does it set a tone for the rest of the poem?

3. Where is Harlem and why is it significant to the meaning of this poem?

4. Describe the form of this poem.

5. How does the second stanza set up a contrast between dark and light?

6. What does the poem conclude is the cause of the women's choice to pursue sex work?

7. How does the use of the word "prowling" contrast with the poem's previous descriptions of the women?

8. How does McKay convey the idea that these women are sex workers?

(see the answer keys)

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