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Direction: Read the passage carefully and answer the question. Langston Hughes was one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. He was born in Joplin, Missouri, and moved to Cleveland…

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Direction: Read the passage carefully and answer the question.
Langston Hughes was one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. He was born in Joplin, Missouri, and moved to Cleveland at the age of fourteen. Several years later he spent one year in Mexico before attending Columbia University in New York. For a few years after that he roamed the world as a seaman, visiting ports around the world and writing some poetry. He returned to the United States and attended Lincoln University, where he won the Witter Bynner prize for undergraduate poetry. After graduating in 1928, he travelled to Spain and to Russia with the help of a Guggenheim fellowship. His novels include Not Without Laughter (1930) and The Big Sea (1940). He wrote an autobiography in 1956 and also published several collection of poetry. His collections include: The Weary Blues (1926), The Dream Keeper (1932), Shakespeare in Harlem (1942), Fields of Wonder (1947), One Way Ticket (1947) and Selected Poems (1959). A man of many talents, Hughes was also a lyricist, librettist and a journalist. As an older man in the 1960s he spent much of his time collecting poems from Africa and from African-Americans to popularize black writers.
Hughes is one of the most accomplished writers in American literary history, and he is seen as one of the artistic leaders of the Harlem Renaissance, the period when a neighbourhood that was predominantly black, produced a flood of great literature, music and other art forms depicting daily city life for African-Americans.

What provided Hughes with assistance for his travel to Spain and Russia?
  1. A literary fellowship
  2. His job as a reporter
  3. His career as a soldier
  4. A college study programme

Answer and explanation

Correct answer: A - A literary fellowship
The passage says he travelled to Spain and Russia 'with the help of a Guggenheim fellowship', which is a literary/academic fellowship. Nothing mentions reporting, soldiering or a college programme.

Practice for these exams

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