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

2. In the first image of the sex workers, what is being emphasized?
(a) The burden of social expectations.
(b) Their determination.
(c) Their reaction to the cold.
(d) The motion of their bodies.

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

4. What ideas are associated with the snow in this poem?
(a) Circumstance, poverty, and innocence.
(b) Heaven, purity, and nature.
(c) Prejudice, indifference, and suffering.
(d) Punishment, corruption, and justice.

5. In line 1, "footsteps of a lass" is an example of which technique?
(a) Sibilance.
(b) Synesthesia.
(c) Onomatopoeia.
(d) Alliteration.

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. What are the sex workers wearing on their feet?

4. What does the expression "feet of clay" in line 15 refer to?

5. Which line most clearly echoes the tension between "little girls" (line 5) and "prowling" (line 6)?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

6. Describe the form of this poem.

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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