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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the name of the mortician in Chicasetta?

2. Which of the following colleges does Lydia note Dante attends?

3. Which college is Ailey’s cousin Malcolm expected to attend?

4. To which of the following does Nila compare Dylan?

5. Which of the following is quoted at the beginning of V?

Short Essay Questions

1. What offenses does the novel note prompted the transportation of English criminals to Georgia?

2. What is reported as Lydia’s favorite Christmas song?

3. What causes the death of Root’s mother?

4. How does Micco come to own the land he holds?

5. How is Ailey supposedly rebuked for not accepting punishment alongside Boukie and Baybay?

6. On what is Ailey’s college savings spent, rather than her own collegiate study?

7. How does Coco explain having changed her hairstyle in college?

8. Throughout the book, a number of women use botanical contraceptives. What are those discussed earliest in the novel?

9. For what reason do the women of Belle’s hometown not blame men for adultery?

10. Why does Root appreciate Founder’s Day?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the title of the novel. Explicate its significance against the text of the book.

Essay Topic 2

Section divisions, their titles, and chapter numbering / division schema are all components of paratext. That is, they are not part of the text but are associated with it closely and affect its meaning. What significance, if any, accrues to the chapter-numbering scheme at work in The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois? If there is significance, how does that significance manifest? If there is not, what in the novel supports the paratextual divisions that are in place?

Essay Topic 3

What effect on the reader does the paired narratives—that of the Songs and that of the main narrative—have? How does the text create that effect?

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