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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is one of Dillard's main occupations in the winter?
(a) reading
(b) knitting
(c) sewing
(d) watching television

2. What does Dillard believe is healing?
(a) sunshine
(b) white clouds in blue skies
(c) soothing music
(d) flowing water

3. Before a baby can distinguish objects, what kind does it prefer?
(a) complex designs over simple ones
(b) ones that have bright colors
(c) ones that sparkle and shine
(d) ones that have moving parts

4. How do blind people who suddenly gain sight usually see objects at first?
(a) as patches of colored light
(b) as black and white
(c) as all gray
(d) as bigger than they really are

5. Dillard sees so much in the natural world which seems paradoxical. Why?
(a) she saw beauty side by side with horrors
(b) because half the day had sun, half did not
(c) because the same plant could heal you or kill you
(d) because large trees would block the sun from smaller ones

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Dillard say happens the moment you are aware of the present?

2. What does the author see as an active mystery?

3. If there were only one tree in the world, what would happen, according to the author?

4. Why does the author think nature experiments with insects' shape, form and "niche?"

5. What sport does the author play come spring?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Dillard question both the morality and the compassion of nature?

2. Dillard spends the entire chapter dealing with the passing of a hurricane. How does the theme of "floods" relate to other parts of the book?

3. What is the story that Dillard relates about the Polyphemus moth and how does it show a possible origin of her attitude towards creatures?

4. Dillard is somewhat obsessed with how creation reproduces itself and the excess with which it does so. How might this "obsession" relate to Dillard's own life or self?

5. Dillard recalls what a woman recently told her, "'Seem like we're just set down here...and don't nobody know why."' What do you think this saying means?

6. Describe the two ways of seeing, according to Dillard.

7. Dillard believes that the death of the self is painless. What might she mean by this?

8. Dillard remembers once seeing migrating Canadian geese fly, speeding across the duck pond which leads her to think what?

9. In Chapter 3, what has the reader learned about Dillard's attitude towards living creatures?

10. What does Dillard say about the trauma of people blind since birth who get their sight?

(see the answer keys)

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