The Joy Luck Club Quizzes

1. What does the swan in the prologue represent?

• The beauty of China, now lost through assimilation.
• The effects of the cruelty of American immigration officials.
• The daughters' vanity in trying to become more than their mothers would ever be.
• The mothers' expectations for their American daughters.

2. Who were the original members of the Joy Luck Club?

• Suyuan, An-mei, Lindo, and Ying-ying.
• Four legendary women in Kweilin, about whom Suyuan read.
• June, An-mei, Lindo, and Ying-ying.
• Suyuan and three other women who lived in Kweilin.

3. Why was the Joy Luck Club begun originally?

• Because all the other residents of Kweilin had similar clubs.
• To maintain good spirits despite the horrors of the Second World War.
• To pass time in the caves during bombing raids.
• To create a Chinese legacy for the daughters to continue.

4. What do the mothers give Jing-mei at the end of the meeting?

• Good-luck foods and money to take home to her husband.
• Enough money to start a new Joy Luck club with the other daughters.
• A Mah Jong set of her own.
• Enough money to visit her long-lost sisters in China.

5. Why doesn't Jing-mei know her Chinese sisters?

• Her mother never tried to look for them, and she told June never to speak of them.
• She never knew they existed.
• They are not her real sisters but old friends of Suyuan's from Kweilin.
• Her mother only recently managed to find them.

6. Why must there always be four members of the Joy Luck Club?

• One for each corner of the Mah Jong table.
• One for each week of the month.
• One for each season of the year.
• One for each of the four elements of the soul.

7. According to Jing-mei, what defined her mother's relationships with the other members of the Joy Luck Club?

• Exclusivity.
• Acceptance.
• Consolation.
• Competition.

8. Why did Jing-mei think that her mother's Kweilin story was a fairy tale?

• She told it to her in Chinese, like all other fairy tales.
• She could not believe such a painful story was real.
• She told it to her at bedtime.
• She always changed the ending.

9. How did An-mei get the scar on her neck?

• She was born with it, causing disgrace in her family.
• In the midst of a family argument, hot soup accidentally spilled all over her neck.
• She cut flesh from her neck in an attempt to cure her mother's illness.
• Popo spilled hot soup on her neck to spite An-mei's mother.

10. Why did An-mei's mother cut flesh from her arm?

• To make a sacrifice to the spirits of her ancestors.
• As a debt for disgracing her family.
• To make a curative soup for Popo.
• To make An-mei feel better about the scar on her neck.