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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. In what Jamaican city did Garnette Cadogan, the author of the essay "Black and Blue," grow up?
(a) Portmore.
(b) Kingston.
(c) Negril.
(d) Montego Bay.

2. How many years elapsed between the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama and the shootings at the Emanuel Methodist Church in Charleston, South Carolina?
(a) 41.
(b) 52.
(c) 36.
(d) 64.

3. Which of her audiences does Kiese Laymon say his grandmother had considered to be the most important audience of her work?
(a) Preceding Southern black women workers.
(b) The women at her church.
(c) White male shift managers.
(d) Upcoming Southern black women workers.

4. For the completion of what task did Kiese Laymon's grandmother used to stay up late on Saturday nights?
(a) Studying for her exams.
(b) Doing the laundry.
(c) Sewing her own clothes.
(d) Washing the kitchen floors.

5. The final line of the poem "Queries of Unrest" references "trying to save them the time of" doing what "to darkness when all they have to do is close their eyes" (100)?
(a) Ignoring.
(b) Burying.
(c) Witnessing.
(d) Planting.

Short Answer Questions

1. For how many hours was Michael Brown's body left facedown in the street after being shot six times by police in Ferguson?

2. To what city did the author of "Black and Blue" move in 1996 in order to attend college?

3. To begin the essay "The Condition of Black Life is One of Mourning," Claudia Rankine relates a story about a friend of hers who had just given birth to a baby boy and whose first thought upon his birth was how she could get him out of the country. This thought occurred to her even before she had performed what two actions?

4. What is the title of the widely-circulated comic depicting the significant difference between what a white mother says to her son as he walks out the door, versus what a black mother says to her son as he walks out the door?

5. In what country did Rachel Dolezal falsely claim to have lived?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Garnette Cadogan misunderstand the advice of the university officials who tell him to walk only in certain areas of New Orleans after his move there to attend college?

2. How does the poem "Queries of Unrest" connect to the part of the collection that it opens, entitled Reckoning?

3. What is People's Justice and what is the organization's goal?

4. Who does Claudia Rankine name as the person who created "a new pathway for how to think about a lynched body" (147) and what does she mean?

5. How is paradox employed within the poem "Queries of Unrest" and to what effect?

6. What was the object mentioned in the very first lines of OutKast's music first heard by Kiese Laymon and why did the object's mention draw him in?

7. What distinction does Kiese Laymon make between "stank" and "freshness" (118) in his essay "Da Art of Storytellin' (A Prequel)"?

8. What contrast does the author of "Black and Blue" set up by using a quote from Fats Waller and a quote by Walt Whitman prior to the body of his essay?

9. What two reasons does the author of "Know Your Rights" give for being bothered by her four-year-old son's tantrum during the family's walk to High Bridge?

10. What details does Kiese Laymon use in order to depict his grandmother's identity to the reader?

(see the answer keys)

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