View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Of which writer does Gardner say, "the brilliant language with which he describes a minor character cannot help but suggest that the words he chooses are more important to him than the token secretary behind the desk"?
(a) Dylan Thomas.
(b) John Updike.
(c) William Faulkner.
(d) F. Scott Fitzgerald.

2. What author does Gardner remark has a persistent mean streak in his writing?
(a) Hemingway.
(b) Joyce.
(c) Salinger.
(d) Kerouac.

3. What kind of intelligence does Gardner say is important to the writer in Chapter 1?
(a) Psychological.
(b) Storyteller's.
(c) Mathematics.
(d) Philosophical.

4. Who is one of the writers Gardner notes in Chapter 1 as having both a fine ear for language and also a fascination with the materials?
(a) Hemingway.
(b) Joyce.
(c) Proust.
(d) Fitzgerald.

5. Gardner claims he has been happy writing since the age of what?
(a) 12.
(b) 6.
(c) 16.
(d) 8.

6. Who wrote Divine Comedy?
(a) Joyce.
(b) Bloom.
(c) Chekhov.
(d) Dante.

7. Which author does Gardner state had "gazelle eyes" which dominated the room in Chapter 1?
(a) Anthony Trollope.
(b) Joyce Carol Oates.
(c) F. Scott Fitzgerald.
(d) James Joyce.

8. Which author does Gardner say has a style at parties to take to the floor at any cost, telling funny stories?
(a) Joyce Carol Oates.
(b) Stanley Elkin.
(c) Truman Capote.
(d) Bernard Malamud.

9. Of what author does Gardner say his heroes are clown-heroes knocked around by the universe?
(a) Hemingway.
(b) Kafka.
(c) James.
(d) Odets.

10. Gardner compares Melville's Moby Dick with what in Chapter 1?
(a) Omoo.
(b) Emma.
(c) Anna Karanina.
(d) To Have and Have Not.

11. Which author wrote A Tale of Two Cities?
(a) Melville.
(b) Bedlow.
(c) Dickens.
(d) Steinbeck.

12. What name does Gardner assign to the teenage daughter whose unknown father moves next door in Chapter 1?
(a) Wanda.
(b) Laura.
(c) Sarah.
(d) Michelle.

13. To whose poetry and prose had Gardner made allusions to in the novel Grendel?
(a) Percy Shelley.
(b) William Blake.
(c) Lord Byron.
(d) Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

14. What word does Gardner use to mean a phrase is worn out and overused?
(a) Sentimental.
(b) Cliche.
(c) Trite.
(d) Ironic.

15. Who is the author of The Turn of the Screw?
(a) Henry James.
(b) Dylan Thomas.
(c) Henry Melville.
(d) James Joyce.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where did Raymond Carver move to Chico, California from?

2. In Chapter 1, Gardner writes that one is unable to write for everyone, "try to win the audience both of Saul Bellow and" whom?

3. What is the first thing that Gardner states a writer needs to have in Chapter 1?

4. Who developed the style of the "epiphany story" in The Dubliners?

5. Which philosopher maintained that nothing a writer writes means anything, "all the words are a lunatic blithering," since all language is by nature false and misleading?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 422 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample