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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How long were schools in Prince Edward closed due to defunding to avoid segregation?
(a) Five years.
(b) Six months.
(c) Three weeks.
(d) One year.

2. Why did Dorothy Hoover leave NACA?
(a) Because she could not advance to an engineering position at NACA.
(b) For a better job in another laboratory.
(c) To get married.
(d) To pursue a master's degree in mathematics.

3. What did the students in Christine Mann Darden's high school worry about when they heard the Brown v. Board of Education decision?
(a) They worried that their school would be closed.
(b) They worried that they would be forced to move to where they could go to white schools.
(c) They worried that their white classmates would be angry if the black students got better grades.
(d) They worried they would not be able to compete with white students.

4. Where was Katherine Goble Johnson when she found out about the jobs available at Langley for black women?
(a) In a bus station.
(b) At a wedding.
(c) At church.
(d) At the laundromat.

5. What did school boards in the community around Langley do to keep black students from attending white schools after schools were integrated?
(a) They placed black students in lower level classes than white students.
(b) They paid "school fees" to the families.
(c) They offered scholarships to black students who graduated from black schools.
(d) They did not allow black students to participate in extracurricular activities.

6. Who coauthored Mary Jackson's first report?
(a) R.T. Jones.
(b) Kaz Czarnecki.
(c) Dorothy Vaughan.
(d) Katherine Goble Johnson.

7. Where did NASA move the space program to in anticipation of the large number of people needed to accomplish the manned orbital flight?
(a) Houston.
(b) California.
(c) Langley.
(d) Kennedy Space Center.

8. In what year was East Computing disbanded?
(a) 1961.
(b) 1953.
(c) 1947.
(d) 1943.

9. What did Langley's Analysis and Computation Division do?
(a) Introduced male computers to Langley.
(b) Integrated black and white female computers into one group.
(c) Separated the black women computers from their engineering groups.
(d) Caused the human computers at Langley to lose their jobs.

10. What did Executive Order 10925, signed by President Kennedy, call for?
(a) Desegregation of the military.
(b) Affirmative action.
(c) Abolition of the Jim Crow laws.
(d) Desegregation of schools.

11. What made white computers laugh at Mary Jackson?
(a) She was not allowed to sit with them in the cafeteria.
(b) She did not know how to use a calculator.
(c) She made a calculation error.
(d) She asked them where the bathroom was.

12. What was the first machine used at Langley to perform computations?
(a) An abacus.
(b) A Bell calculator.
(c) An IBM computer.
(d) An Apple computer.

13. Why did Mary Jackson's calculations come up wrong when she was given an assignment by the chief of the Compressibility Division?
(a) He had given her the wrong numbers to use for the calculations.
(b) There was an error made in the research phase.
(c) The equation she was asked to use was incorrect.
(d) She had made a simple math error.

14. What was the purpose of the document titled "Introduction to Outer Space" that was prepared by President Eisenhower's Advisory Committee on Science?
(a) The document was used as a teaching tool for new engineers.
(b) The document was used in high schools to teach space science.
(c) The document explained spaceflight in layman's terms to make the case that a space program was in America's best interests.
(d) The document was used as a recruiting tool for NASA.

15. Why was Katherine Goble Johnson unable to go to the editorial meetings?
(a) Because she was black.
(b) Because they did not pertain to her work.
(c) Because she was female.
(d) Because she was not an engineer.

Short Answer Questions

1. What position was Dorothy Lee subbing in when she impressed the branch chief with her math skills and earned her permanent position in his branch?

2. How did Katherine Goble Johnson gain access to the editorial meetings?

3. What did the reporter who interviewed Dorothy Lee say that women had to work like?

4. Why did Langley employees hold meetings and social gatherings in their own Activities Building in the 1950s?

5. Why was it a challenge for black boys to enter into the All-American Soap Box Derby?

(see the answer keys)

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