View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why was Dillard's finger in pain at times as she wrote in the university office in Virginia?
(a) She got paper cuts.
(b) She had a clothespin stuck to her finger until the water boiled.
(c) She spilled hot water on her fingers once in a while.
(d) Her fingers cramped up from writing for so long.

2. What did Dillard realize when she spoke to the local sheriff in Chapter 3?
(a) She loved writing.
(b) She was a good, sane person.
(c) She was like one who worked in a factory all day.
(d) She loved running a ferryboat.

3. What is the topic of an essay written by Dillard that she said she considers too obscure and too intellectual?
(a) Lions.
(b) A mustang.
(c) A moth.
(d) Popcorn.

4. Where did Dillard forget about a boiling teakettle and burn it?
(a) Her kitchen.
(b) A faculty lounge in a university.
(c) A cabin on Puget Sound.
(d) An office in a college.

5. Where did Willa Cather write her prairie novels?
(a) Kansas City.
(b) Miami.
(c) Wisconsin.
(d) New York City.

Short Answer Questions

1. What passage was Dillard working on in the cabin on Puget Sound while a northeaster was blowing?

2. Why did Dillard write that 'People should not feed moralistic animals'?

3. What is the finished work's relationship to the vision of it, as viewed by Dillard?

4. What does Dillard say that she believes may well be a writer's only firsthand experience?

5. What made the teakettle in the faculty lounge look so interesting in Chapter 3?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Dillard say that she believes a writer must control his or her own energies in order to work?

2. What was unfortunate about Dillard learning how to split wood correctly?

3. In Chapter 5, how does Dillard compare a writer to a tennis player?

4. In Chapter 4, Dillard's typewriter erupted. What was the damage done?

5. How does Dillard compare a writer to a Seminole alligator wrestler?

6. Why does Dillard say it makes more sense to write one big book than to write many stories or essays?

7. Why does Dillard say that she needed more materials than a pencil and paper in order to write something like a second draft for a thirty-page chapter?

8. How does Dillard say that she learned the correct way to split wood on the chopping block?

9. What did writers such as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Ralph Ellison, and Eudora Welty have in common when learning to write, according to Dillard?

10. What was Glenn's story about Ferrar Burn?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,164 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample