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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What color dress does Jing-Mei describe the girl wearing that she watches playing piano on The Ed Sullivan Show with her mother?
(a) Blue
(b) White
(c) Yellow
(d) Green

2. Jing-Mei says in the end of the story of her mother that she had “never found a way to ask her why she had hoped for something so large that” what “was inevitable”?
(a) Sadness
(b) Despair
(c) Revenge
(d) Failure

3. What sensation does Jing-Mei describe as she begins hitting one wrong note after another during the talent show?
(a) A chill started at the top of my head and began to trickle down
(b) A shiver of excitement started in my hands and spread up my arms
(c) I felt a wave of terror and then everything went black
(d) A burning sensation in my heart and then an inability to breathe

4. What is the name of the street that Jing-Mei’s family lives on when she is a child?
(a) Sacramento Street
(b) Roosevelt Street
(c) Oxford Street
(d) Jefferson Street

5. Auntie Lindo tells Jing-Mei’s mother that all day long she has no time to do anything but what, when she is bragging about her daughter?
(a) Clean her daughter’s pageant dresses
(b) Dust off her trophies
(c) Vacuum her daughter’s messes up
(d) Polish her daughter’s beauty crowns

6. When Jing-Mei stands up after playing her piano solo at the talent show, she realizes what are shaking?
(a) Her legs
(b) Her hands
(c) Her ribs
(d) Her shoulders

7. How does Jing-Mei describe the secondhand piano that her parents bought for her?
(a) It was the showpiece of our living room
(b) It was used like a kitchen table for years
(c) It was so ratty we kept it in the basement
(d) It was the eyesore of our household

8. What similarity does Amy Tan share with Jing-Mei from “Two Kinds”?
(a) Her brother went on to become a lawyer
(b) Her mother left behind children in China
(c) Her mother committed suicide when she was young
(d) Her father was an Italian dentist

9. When did the Japanese invasion of China take place, leading Jing-Mei’s mother to flee China?
(a) 1943
(b) 1937
(c) 1929
(d) 1911

10. Jing-Mei describes her childhood ambitions in the beginning of the story by comparing herself to “Cinderella stepping from her pumpkin carriage with” what type of music “filling the air”?
(a) Black-and-white movie music
(b) Whispering music
(c) Old-timey piano music
(d) Sparkly cartoon music

11. How does Jing-Mei describe her mother’s first children in the beginning of the story?
(a) Twin baby girls
(b) Three sons
(c) A boy and a girl
(d) Twin baby boys

12. How old is the little girl on The Ed Sullivan Show that Jing-Mei and her mother watch playing piano?
(a) 12
(b) 9
(c) 16
(d) 3

13. What word does Jing-Mei use in describing Mr. Chong’s silent instrumental compositions with a vague and dreamy character?
(a) Reverie
(b) Arpeggio
(c) Staccato
(d) Trill

14. When Jing-Mei’s mother still lived in China, her husband was serving as an officer where?
(a) Guangzhou
(b) Shanghai
(c) Beijing
(d) Chongqing

15. What does Jing-Mei’s mother do to earn money for the family when Jing-Mei is a child?
(a) She cleans houses
(b) She teaches piano
(c) She cooks at a hotel
(d) She teaches English

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Jing-Mei’s mother die from?

2. How does Jing-Mei describe her family’s television at the time when her mother watched The Ed Sullivan Show?

3. How old does Jing-Mei say she was when her mother told her “Of course you can be prodigy too” in the beginning of the story?

4. At what time does Jing-Mei’s mother insist that Jing-Mei begin her piano practice following the talent show fiasco?

5. The majority of the narrative of “Two Kind” is related in what tense?

(see the answer keys)

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