Flygirl

Multiple Choice and Long Answer questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, unit exam, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. In Chapter 15, Ida Mae finds herself alone in a frightening situation at the hardware store. Reflecting on it, she describes it as, “harder than any flight maneuver [she has] ever performed.” What are the two meanings of flight in this sentence?

A) To follow and to fly

B) To steer and to escape

C) To fly and to navigate

D) To escape and to return

2. Which of the following is the novel’s main conflict?

A) Ida Mae struggles to acclimate to life as a service pilot.

B) Ida Mae and Jolene work to maintain their friendship over a long distance.

C) Ida Mae fails to keep her family safe and together during World War II.

D) Ida Mae struggles with her identity and her sense of self while passing.

3. Which of the following best represents the main conflict?

A) Ida Mae’s grandfather tells her to follow her nature, and she chooses to report for WASP duty.

B) Ida Mae fails her swimming test and doesn’t get along well with Nancy Howard.

C) Ida Mae and Jolene have an argument at the beauty salon; they refuse to speak to each other afterwards.

D) Thomas is lost in the Asian Pacific; Ida Mae’s mother falls apart.

4. Which of the following statements best represents the prevailing attitude about women serving during wartime?

A) “Men do the fighting, Ida Mae. Women take care of the home. You can be proud of that. It’s enough. Too much, sometimes, but it’s more than enough.” (Chapter 3)

B) “Listen to me, girl. Because you are young and you don’t know, I’m here to tell you: you cross that line, you cannot cross back just as you please.” (Chapter 6)

C) “You’ve left husbands and children at home to be here, and while I can’t approve of that choice, I can make sure that you still know your place in this man’s army.” (Chapter 10)

D) “You see, we all have our nature at the core of everything we do. There’s no challenging it, no matter how hard we try.” (Chapter 20)

5. Which of the following best reveals a primary reason why Ida Mae decided to join WASP?

A) “Sailors are dying in Hawaii, women are flying overseas. But everything is the same for the Joneses of Slidell, Louisiana.” (Chapter 2)

B) “I’ll be able to do something more than collect bacon fat and iron scraps if they’ll let me fly.” (Chapter 5)

C) “But they know Jonesey, and that’s who I really am. For the first time since leaving home, I’ve got friends, and that tells me I belong.” (Chapter 11)

D) “Really? Did the army ask for you? Did President Roosevelt send you a letter requesting your help?” (Chapter 25)

6. What made Ida Mae feel more comfortable with her decision to pass for white?

A) Seeing another Black woman get rejected from the program for the color of her skin.

B) Getting dressed for her interview with Jolene, when Jolene encourages her to pass, saying, “you’d better be safe over sorry” (Chapter 5).

C) Making friends who accept her even though they know her secret.

D) Realizing that she wasn’t lying about her race as much as allowing people to see what they wanted to see in her. 

7. Before she makes her decision to pass as white, what is at the heart of Ida Mae’s discomfort?

A) Ida Mae’s previous experiences with her grandmother and a classmate, who were passing and rejected their own friends and family, made her dislike the idea altogether.

B) Jolene, Ida Mae’s childhood best friend, was already jealous of the attention Ida Mae gets for her looks, and Ida Mae didn’t want to make it worse.

C) Because Ida Mae’s mother had been rejected in previous attempts at passing, Ida Mae worried about the risks involved in being rejected, too.

D) Concealing her race and class required a great deal of acting, but Ida Mae’s respect for the acting profession made her want to tread carefully.

8. Why is burying Patsy in the ground particularly striking to Ida Mae?

A) Before she died, Patsy explained that she wanted to be cremated and scattered over a mountain range from an airplane.

B) Patsy was passionate about flying and being in the air; seeing her buried in the ground felt like the worst thing for her.

C) Patsy had taught Ida Mae how to tie worry knots, but Ida Mae had forgotten how to use them before Patsy died.

D) Lily and Ida Mae were the only friends Patsy had, and Ida Mae worried that her fate would be much the same.

9. Which of the following is the clearest indication of Lily’s social class?

A) Being engaged to a doctor

B) Planning for a wedding at the Waldorf-Astoria

C) Paying for trunk storage at the local train station

D) Not knowing how to make a bed

10. What does Ida Mae mean when she employs “small town irony” (Chapter 12) to find Baker’s Pond?

A) Every small town in America is ironically named as part of a vast Viking conspiracy.

B) The charm and uniqueness of small towns wears off after a few short days.

C) There’s a code to deciphering small towns on a map, requiring a special understanding.

D) Many towns are named the exact opposite of what they represent. 

11. Why does Ida Mae feel tense when the women go out to celebrate passing their first test at the Avengerette Club?

A) She doesn’t get along well with the other women, and she misses home.

B) Seeing the “whites only” sign and dancing with Walt made her feel uncomfortable.

C) Encountering the young woman who had failed basic training made Ida Mae think she was going to fail next.

D) Ida Mae was still feeling stressed because she had to retake her test the next day.

12. What is one of the luxuries the women find at the Sweetwater training base that reminds readers about the economic strains of war time?

A) Ice cream, butter, and steak in the mess hall

B) Airplanes and individual rooms for each one of them

C) Having the military fund their travel by train to the base

D) Getting to swim in a pool every day on base

13. The special attention Ida Mae pays to making sure her hair looks right is connected to which of the following themes?

A) Civic Duty During Wartime

B) Racial Identity and Segregation

C) Gender Roles and Bias in the 1940s

D) Family Differences and Distance

14. Which of the following best describes Ida Mae’s motivation throughout the novel?

A) Ambition

B) Freedom

C) Accomplishment

D) Civic duty

15. Which of the following motivates Ida Mae to volunteer to be the lieutenant for her flight at Sweetwater?

A) Ambition

B) Freedom

C) Accomplishment

D) Civic duty

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating textual details to support your response.

1. What are some ways that Ida Mae and her friends combat biases against women while serving as WASPs?

2. Why does Ida Mae’s mother worry so deeply about the fate of her daughter? Why does she encourage Ida Mae to come home once Thomas is found?