ACT English Practice Test 55

Zora Neale Hurston, Independent Woman

Zora Neale Hurston proves to be a study in contrasts: a black writer reaching a white audience, a woman struggling in a man's profession, an independent thinker living in a conformist era. _Now, _Q46 almost 50 years since her death, her hard work and fabulous novels still have much to teach the modern audience. She overcame the challenges she _faced and _Q47 demonstrated that perseverance makes anything possible.

Hurston ascribed much of her _deeply individualistic _Q48 personality to the experience of growing up in Eatonville, Florida. The town was unique in that it was _particularly hot in the summer, but mild at other times of the year. _Q49 Hurston always said growing up in a community totally separate from the larger white society allowed her a freedom _that _Q50 independence not available to everyone in the south.

[1] Hurston began her undergraduate studies at Howard University, but her obvious _intelligence and talent _Q51 soon earned her a scholarship to Barnard College in New York City. [2] Moving north in the _1920s thrust _Q52 her into the midst of the Harlem Renaissance, a black cultural movement that spawned exceptional achievements in _literature, books, poems, and plays_, Q53 art, and music. [3] Interacting with the likes of Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois, Billie Holiday, and Duke Ellington, Hurston _developed _Q54 her skills as a writer and published numerous short stories and poems. Q55 [4] The most influential work that came to define her career grew out of her attempt to capture the black experience. [5] That novel, called Their Eyes Were Watching God, traced three generations of a family living in Eatonville. [6] Her _interesting _Q56 representation of the southern dialect caused her Harlem Renaissance contemporaries to belittle the work for what they saw as its propagation of inaccurate stereotypes. [7] Hurston, however, remained true to _it_, Q57 convinced that the accuracy of her representation would ultimately prevail over the political pressures her peers sought to inflict upon her. Q58

History has shown that Hurston was right. _However, modern _Q59 critics admire her authentic and skillful representation of the language as well as her realistic portrayal of daily life in the early twentieth century. She is universally _applauded, as one of the best writers of her era, _Q60 ranked with Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, and Alice Walker as one of the most important African-American writers of all time.