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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. When the narrator’s wife first contacted the blind man after working for him, she called him from what state?
(a) Missouri
(b) Tennessee
(c) Alabama
(d) Indiana

2. How long ago does the narrator’s wife say she and her husband bought their sofa?
(a) 3 years ago
(b) 2 weeks ago
(c) 6 weeks ago
(d) 4 days ago

3. What central theme unites the main characters in “Cathedral”?
(a) Overreaching ambition
(b) Alienation
(c) Lust
(d) Maternal love

4. Where did the narrator’s wife fall asleep after overdosing on pills while at Travis A.F.B.?
(a) On the patio
(b) In the garage
(c) In the bathtub
(d) In the basement

5. How does the narrator describe the blind man’s facial hair?
(a) He has a handlebar mustache
(b) He has a full beard
(c) He has muttonchops
(d) He has a goatee

6. When the narrator changes the television channel, he says there is something about the Church and what era on?
(a) The Stone Age
(b) The Industrial Revolution
(c) The Computer Age
(d) The Middle Ages

7. What does the blind man ask the narrator after giving prefacing it with, “Hey, listen. I hope you don’t mind my asking you. Can I ask you something? Let me ask you a simple question, yes or no”?
(a) He asks if the narrator is religious
(b) He asks if the narrator is a sports fan
(c) He asks if the narrator is a dog lover
(d) He asks if the narrator is true to his wife

8. How does the narrator describe the windows he draws on the cathedral in the story?
(a) Triangular
(b) Squared
(c) Wide
(d) Arched

9. What color are the narrator’s wife’s robe and slippers?
(a) Pink
(b) Blue
(c) Green
(d) Yellow

10. What question does the blind man ask the narrator as the narrator begins drawing the cathedral in the story?
(a) Where’s your wife when you need her, huh, bub?
(b) Where are you going to put the steeple and the people, bub?
(c) Never thought anything like this could happen in your lifetime, did you, bub?
(d) What kind of building are you drawing here, bub?

11. How does the narrator feel about the blind man’s visit in the beginning of the story?
(a) Excited
(b) Unenthusiastic
(c) Apprehensive
(d) Angry

12. How did the blind man’s wife die?
(a) She died of cancer
(b) She died in childbirth
(c) She was in a car accident
(d) She committed suicide

13. Where does the narrator sit when he returns to the living room with a pen and paper?
(a) In a chair
(b) On the floor
(c) On the table
(d) On the sofa

14. The narrator says that his wife first contacted the blind man after how much time had passed since she’d worked for him?
(a) 3 years
(b) 5 years
(c) 1 year
(d) 8 months

15. For what literary genre is author Raymond Carver most well known?
(a) Absurdist drama
(b) Science fiction
(c) Minimalist fiction
(d) Epic literature

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the narrator say his wife writes one or two of every year?

2. How does the narrator instruct the blind man to smoke the marijuana in the story?

3. What were the literary formats that Raymond Carver’s career was dedicated to?

4. The narrator says that the “was having a drink and” doing what when he “heard the car pull into the drive” with his wife and the blind man?

5. The narrator tells the blind man, “In those olden days, when they built cathedrals, men wanted to be” what?

(see the answer keys)

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