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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. Which of the following picks Ailey up from the airport?

2. What is the title of the public lecture Ailey is obliged to attend?

3. For which of the following prizes and awards had Whitcomb been a finalist?

4. For what county does Jeremiah work as a slave patroller?

5. With which of the following does Song (7) begin?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Ailey hesitate to focus on the Pinchard family for her work in Whitcomb’s class?

2. How does Rebecca regard Ailey’s presence in their common graduate program?

3. What bias does Ailey note is at work among the interviewers for the Federal Writers’ Project?

4. What explanation is given in the novel for the hindered growth of many enslaved women and girls?

5. Why does Aggie cut Eliza Two’s face?

6. Why does Samuel hire Holcomb as overseer?

7. To what labor is Gideon put after being transported to what would become Georgia?

8. What is the last thing Lydia sees before dying?

9. How does Claudius earn the money he uses to secure his freedom?

10. How does Ailey react to the work she does in the archives for Oludara?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the ending of the novel. Does it satisfy? How or how not?

Essay Topic 2

To what genre other than literary fiction might The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois be considered to belong? What in the text supports that identification? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

To what extent can the novel be taken as autobiographical? What in the novel and its context of composition suggests as much, and how does it do so?

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This section contains 580 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample