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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What song are the blacks in the field singing as Kunta travels with his new owner?
(a) Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
(b) An African death song
(c) He cannot understand the words.
(d) Through the Valley

2. What is the significance of a wrestler picking up the headpiece of a village girl?
(a) He is signalling an appreciation for her sewing ability.
(b) He is offering to trade her a gift for the head piece.
(c) He is expressing his interest in marriage.
(d) There is no significance.

3. Why does Kunta begin eating the horrible gruel that's put before him?
(a) He comes to accept that it's all that will be offered.
(b) So that he will regain his strength.
(c) To keep from being beaten for not eating.
(d) He is hungry.

4. What question is NOT asked of the boys of Kunta's group upon their graduation?
(a) A math problem about monkeys and ground nuts
(b) How to write their names in Arabic
(c) About the work of their ancestors
(d) How to decipher the message of the village drum

5. What does Fiddler do to make his fingers nimble again?
(a) Plays his fiddle
(b) Rubs them with oil
(c) Plaits cornhusks
(d) Squeezes a stick

6. How old are girls when they prepare to marry?
(a) Fourteen rains or younger
(b) Nineteen rains or older
(c) Twenty rains or younger
(d) Thirty rains or older

7. After whom is Kunta named?
(a) His grandmother
(b) The midwife
(c) His father
(d) His grandfather

8. What is the name of the brown man who first befriends Kunta?
(a) Fiddler
(b) Buck
(c) Samson
(d) Fredrick

9. What is the fate of a boy who fails the manhood training?
(a) He is killed.
(b) He is given another chance the following year.
(c) He is treated always like a child and never marries.
(d) He is sent from the village.

10. How is Kunta fed when he becomes too weak to eat for himself?
(a) By pouring watered gruel down his throat
(b) A woman chews the food and then forces it between his lips
(c) Through a tube
(d) He isn't fed

11. What is the rule Kunta must follow when it is time to eat?
(a) Chew with his mouth closed
(b) Never speak to adults who are eating
(c) Keep his eyes on his own food
(d) Eati only after the adults begin

12. What does Kunta vow that he will do if he ever again returns to his village?
(a) That he will tell what the toubob land is really like.
(b) That he will raise an army to kill toubob.
(c) That he will never again leave.
(d) That he will show his mother his love for her.

13. What is the attitude of Nyo Boto toward the men of the tribe?
(a) She is defiant.
(b) She makes wigs to show her love for them.
(c) She defers to their needs.
(d) She desires them all.

14. What food is offered Kunta by the black slave?
(a) Bread
(b) Meat
(c) Gruel
(d) Nothing

15. How is Kunta told that a griot learns his skill?
(a) By traveling from tribe to tribe and learning from tribe elders.
(b) By spending time with the minds of the ancestors.
(c) By studying with the elder griots.
(d) By reading the written ancestry of the tribes.

Short Answer Questions

1. How many times daily do the men stop for prayers?

2. What do Kunta and Lamin have when they return to Juffure?

3. Why do the children of Kunta's village try to catch the flakes of ashes?

4. What is Kunta given to help him begin moving about?

5. What is the purpose of the tree trunk Kunta plans to chop down?

(see the answer keys)

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