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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Cathedral.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What term describes a movement where a literary or artistic work is set out to expose the essence or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts?
(a) Truism
(b) Focused
(c) Critical
(d) Minimalism

2. When the blind man asks the narrator to describe a cathedral to him, what is the first thing the narrator says?
(a) You can’t look at one without seeing the arches
(b) The first things you notice are the intricate details
(c) To begin with, they’re very tall
(d) They have a very broad foundation

3. Where does the narrator’s wife fall asleep after they’ve smoked marijuana?
(a) In the chair
(b) On the floor
(c) In the bathtub
(d) On the couch

4. What happens to the television show as the narrator works on his drawing of a cathedral in the story?
(a) It gets louder
(b) It goes off the air
(c) It plays on mute
(d) It transitions to the desert

5. The narrator says of the “officer-to-be” that he’d been his wife’s what?
(a) School rival
(b) Childhood sweetheart
(c) Familial enemy
(d) Cousin

Short Answer Questions

1. What are the first words that the blind man says to the narrator when he arrives?

2. What does the blind man remark about the narrator’s television set, saying, “Don’t ask me how, but I can tell”?

3. How many short stories are included in the anthology Cathedral?

4. In what year was “Cathedral” chosen to appear in The Best American Short Stories?

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

(see the answer key)

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