Reading Quizzes and Vocabulary Lists

1. What first name was Maya Angelou given at birth?

2. How old was the narrator when she went to work for Mrs. Cullinan?

3. Where had Miss Glory’s ancestors worked?

4. Why did Mrs. Cullinan have no children?

5. What bad habit did Mrs. Cullinan try to hide?

6. Who were the Coleman girls?

7. About what subject did the narrator want to write a poem?

8. What name had Glory’s mother given her?

9. What name did the speckled-faced lady suggest for the narrator?

10. Which dishes did the narrator choose to break?

Name

Date

MAYA ANGELOU “My Name Is Margaret”

VOCABULARY LIST

liberal

crocheting

impish

impudent

novelty

dilemma

1. What is the subject of Goodwin’s book that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize?

2. How old was Goodwin when her father gave her her own baseball score book?

3. How did Goodwin “attend” the baseball games she scored as a child?

4. Of which baseball team was Goodwin a fan?

5. What was Michael Kearns’s pet name for his enthusiastic daughter?

6. Who was Red Barber?

7. What did Casey Stengel do before becoming manager of the Yankees?

8. What was Michael Kearns’s job?

9. Where did Michael Kearns also learn about the baseball games that his daughter narrated for him?

10. Name one of the New York baseball teams between 1949 and 1957.

Name

Date

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN “Keeping the Scorebook”

VOCABULARY LIST

forge

cajole

mastery

engender

antic

1. In which United States territory was Cofer born?

2. In which Broadway musical did the song that the man on the bus sings originate?

3. Why was the narrator of this essay in England?

4. What did her Anglo friends and their mothers think of her clothes?

5. Which special day at school caused the narrator to agonize about what to wear?

6. How does Cofer say advertisers generally portray women from her culture?

7. Does Cofer say it is custom or chromosomes that cause Latin women to choose to wear scarlet over pale pink?

8. Which religious tradition has customarily protected Latin women?

9. What are piropos?

10. What does the woman in the audience request from the narrator just prior to her public poetry reading?

Name

Date

judith ortiz cofer “The Myth of the Latin Woman”

VOCABULARY LIST

Latina

bodega

coalesced

innuendo

pueblo

retrospect

faux pas

Name

Date

Andre Dubus “Digging”

READING QUIZ

1. How did Dubus lose his leg?

2. How old is the narrator at the time that the story he tells takes place?

3. What was the narrator’s job at the time of his father’s death?

4. Why did bullies pick on the narrator?

5. What did the narrator’s father tell his son about professional wrestling matches?

6. With whom was the narrator assigned to work on his first day at the construction job?

7. To what specific duty was he assigned on that first day?

8. Describe the narrator’s lunch-hour activities on his first day on the job.

9. What did the narrator’s father purchase for him on that day?

10. Who really “made a man” of the narrator?

Name

Date

Andre Dubus “Digging”

VOCABULARY LIST

ruddy

rebuke

Cajun

pith helmet

stewardship

exultant

1. What did Orwell choose to do rather than complete his education?

2. What is the narrator’s job?

3. What is Orwell’s attitude toward imperialism?

4. What object does the narrator obtain after discovering the dead man?

5. Besides adventure, what did the locals hope to get from the killing of the elephant?

6. What is the elephant doing when it is found?

7. How many people does the narrator estimate comprise the crowd behind him?

8. In shooting an elephant, where should one aim?

9. How many cartridges does the narrator fire into the elephant?

10. How long did it take the elephant to die?

Name

Date

GEORGE ORWELL “Shooting an Elephant”

VOCABULARY LIST

perplexing

prostrate

imperialism

labyrinth

conjurer

senility

pretext

1. How old was Adams when she published her first book of fiction?

2. Who does Emily learn that Carstair Jones has married?

3. Where is Hilton, the town where the story takes place?

4. How was the dean of the medical school, Dean Willoughby Jones, related to Carstair?

5. What portentous choice does Emily make during a schoolyard game of “truth or consequences”?

6. Who is the author of the flattering notes Emily receives at school?

7. Why did Car Jones leave the seventh grade?

8. What genre of literature did Car Jones write while he was a college student?

9. What was D.K.E.?

10. To whom is Emily married when she tells this story?

Name

Date

ALICE ADAMS “Truth or Consequences”

VOCABULARY LIST

wisteria

pandemonium

ambiguous

discomfit

opulence

languidly

partisan

contempt

1. Where did Eighner live for five years?

2. When did Eighner begin “Dumpster diving”?

3. Why is it unnecessary for people to be ashamed of being seen scavenging in Dumpsters?

4. What separates the casual Dumpster scavengers from the “professionals”?

5. Where did Eighner obtain “a steady supply of fresh, sometimes warm food”?

6. Why is it advantageous for a scavenger to know the academic calendar?

7. What sort of food does Eighner avoid because, since he doesn’t know what it is sup-posed to look or smell like, he can’t tell if it is bad?

8. Who scrounges for aluminum cans, according to Eighner?

9. What trash does Eighner avoid scavenging because he thinks that would be an invasion of privacy?

10. For whom does Eighner say he feels sorry?

Name

Date

LARS EIGHNER “My Daily Dives in the Dumpster”

VOCABULARY LIST

forage

stigma

dilettanti

emulsified

dysentery

proprietary

sinecure

1. What is the subject of Giovanni’s book Racism 101?

2. Where did Giovanni see the statement “TOO BAD IGNORANCE ISN’T PAINFUL”?

3. In which state does Giovanni work as a university professor?

4. To what other institution that also lets participants read books and develop their writing skills does Giovanni compare college?

5. What is Giovanni’s first rule for college students to follow?

6. What is Giovanni’s attitude toward “extra-curricular” activities?

7. What answer does Giovanni suggest black students give to the question, “What’s it like to grow up in a ghetto”?

8. Why does Giovanni believe white students should take African-American studies courses?

9. Who, according to Giovanni, is responsible for making changes in American racist attitudes?

10. How does Giovanni suggest that college students pretend to act?

Name

Date

NIKKI GIOVANNI “Campus Racism 101”

VOCABULARY LIST

tenured

malice

consistent

syllabus

cultivate

articulation

inquiries

intimidating

Name

Date

NATALIE ANGIER “Dolphin Courtship: Brutal, Cunning, and Complex”

READING QUIZ

1. Upon which subject does Angier report for the New York Times?

2. What do male dolphins do if fertile females aren’t impressed by their synchronous gymnastics?

3. What specific type of porpoise is often enlisted for marine mammal shows?

4. Which mammal is considered more peaceful than the leopard or the chimpanzee?

5. What do packs of dolphins spend hours doing every day?

6. Who teaches each dolphin calf its own whistle sound, in effect its name?

7. How frequently do female dolphins bear a calf?

8. Where does actual dolphin copulation occur?

9. What do dolphin researchers translate the male’s distinctive popping noise to mean, when it is directed at a female dolphin?

10. Which animal has what may be the largest brain-to-body ratio in nature?

Name

Date

NATALIE ANGIER “Dolphin Courtship: Brutal, Cunning, and Complex”

VOCABULARY LIST

cavort

synchrony

Machiavellian

consensus

unequivocal

copulation

ovulation

estrus

1. In which country was Alvarez raised?

2. What social phenomena were sparked by the publication of Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther?

3. Of what did Mallarmé tell Degas poems are made?

4. What did Alvarez label the folder in which she stores ideas for future writing projects?

5. What fear does Alvarez report was confessed by an Indiana housewife in The 1961 Better Homes and Gardens Sewing Book?

6. According to a newspaper account, what prompted two eleven-year-old girls to “borrow” a car and take a ten-hour drive?

7. Why was Adolfo Gonzales judged to be mentally ill?

8. What, according to Auden, is the correct response to the question “Why do you want to write poetry?”

9. What did the merchant who warned the Mirabel sisters that they would be killed sell to them?

10. Why has Algonquin’s lawyer read all of Alvarez’s books?

Name

Date

julia alvarez “Grounds for Fiction”

VOCABULARY LIST

luminosity

ophthalmological

cheviot

Scheherazade

expository

woolgathering

plenary

1. What subject did Nanda teach at John Jay College of Criminal Justice?

2. By what name are Indian marriages which are not arranged called?

3. How did Nanda describe arranged marriage before her first visit to India?

4. How does Sita respond when the narrator suggests that she is missing out on the fun of dating and meeting lots of different people?

5. In addition to studying arranged marriages, what is another of Nanda’s intentions upon her second, extended, visit to India?

6. Name one thing that Nanda perceives as an asset that her son’s friend has to offer a potential bride.

7. Why doesn’t Nanda’s friend from her previous trip want to choose a mate for her son from among Nanda’s other friend’s five very eligible daughters?

8. Why does the boy’s mother reject the girl who is “pretty and well educated”?

9. Who finally “finds the match” for Nanda’s friend’s son?

10. By what name are suspicious deaths among young Indian brides known?

Name

Date

serena nanda “Arranging a Marriage in India”

VOCABULARY LIST

oppressive

docile

eminently

dowry

demure

ambivalence

stigmatized

Name

Date

ELIZABETH WINTHROP “The Golden Darters”

READING QUIZ

1. Who is the intended audience for Winthrop’s books?

2. How old is the narrator of this story?

3. What medical condition has prompted the father to take up his new hobby?

4. In which room of the house has the father established his work station?

5. Why is Emily allowed to watch her father although her brothers are not?

6. Where does the father take his daily naps?

7. What is the “golden darter” designed to imitate?

8. What skill does the father demand that his daughter learn from him?

9. What does Emily allow her friends to convince her to do, in spite of her parents’ objections?

10. What unusual fashion accessory does Emily wear to the dance?

Name

Date

ELIZABETH WINTHROP “The Golden Darters”