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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. What does Desdemona do to help make the village girls more attractive to Lefty?
(a) She teaches them how to talk to a man in a seductive way.
(b) She gives them sex lessons.
(c) She encourages them to practice personal hygiene.
(d) She teaches them to look like the girls in a lingerie catalog hidden in her father's dresser.

2. Who is Mrs. Watson?
(a) A customer at the Zebra Room.
(b) Lefty's mistress.
(c) Sourmelina's lover.
(d) Milton and Tessie's neighbor.

3. What is the cause of Desdemona's heart palpitations?
(a) Unproductive silkworms.
(b) A rare genetic disorder.
(c) Stress over the Greek occupation of Turkey.
(d) Grief over the deaths of her parents.

4. What does Desdemona do following Lefty's death?
(a) She wails and throws herself on his coffin.
(b) She moves from the guest house into the main house at Middlesex.
(c) She moves to the Southwest with Sourmelina.
(d) She climbs into her bed and does not leave it for ten years.

5. Who is Fard Muhammad?
(a) Maurice Plantagenet.
(b) Dr. Philobosian.
(c) Elijah Poole.
(d) Jimmy Zismo.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the only article of modern technology does the superstitious and traditional Desdemona embraces?

2. Who is Lefty and Desdemona's sponsor for entry into America?

3. Who does Desdemona over hear through the heating vents in the Silk Room of the Temple No. 1?

4. What does the narrator say makes him/her "the most famous hermaphrodite in history"?

5. What is political and social climate of Detroit in this chapter?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe Desdemona's silkworm box and its contents.

2. Describe Sourmelina's appearance when Lefty and Desdemona first arrive in Detroit. What is the significance of the way she looks?

3. How does Desdemona react to the speeches that she hears through the heating grates while working in the Silk Room?

4. What goes through Tessie's mind as she watches movies at the theatre?

5. Why is Desdemona fearful about Tessie and Milton's burgeoning romantic relationship?

6. Why does Desdemona become concerned about her unborn child after talking with Dr. Philobosian?

7. What is the conflict between Desdemona and Lefty in the chapter "Marriage on Ice"?

8. Describe Detroit in 1967.

9. Why do Desdemona and Lefty pretend that they do not know each other while aboard the Giulia?

10. Why are do the members of Temple No. 1 raise silkworms and produce silk fabric and clothing?

(see the answer keys)

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