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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. After showing a cathedral in Portugal, the television show next travels to show a cathedral where?
(a) Poland
(b) Germany
(c) Romania
(d) France

2. The narrator asks the blind man while they watch TV if he knows the difference between a cathedral and what?
(a) A Jewish synagogue
(b) An Islamic mosque
(c) A Catholic church
(d) A Baptist church

3. In what city did the blind man’s wife die?
(a) Sacramento
(b) Springfield
(c) Seattle
(d) San Antonio

4. When the television show about the Church pans across the countryside, the narrator describes men walking behind what?
(a) Chickens
(b) Oxen
(c) Pigs
(d) Sheep

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

6. What color is all of the blind man’s attire when he arrives?
(a) Blue
(b) White
(c) Brown
(d) Black

7. What was the last part of the blind man’s tape that the narrator heard when his wife played it for him?
(a) From all you’ve said about him, I can only conclude—
(b) He sounds like a great man
(c) I can picture the type
(d) You can certainly do better

8. The blind man comments to the narrator as he draw the cathedral, “What’s a cathedral without” what?
(a) Pews
(b) Prayers
(c) People
(d) Priests

9. The narrator says that after the death of the blind man’s wife, he was left with half of what kind of coin?
(a) A twenty-peso Mexican coin
(b) A fifty-rupee Indian coin
(c) A fifty-dinar Algerian coin
(d) A ten-dollar New Zealand coin

10. In what periodical did “Cathedral” first appear?
(a) Harper's Magazine
(b) Readers Digest
(c) The Atlantic Monthly
(d) The Pastel Journal

11. What did the blind man ask the narrator’s wife if he could do on her last day working for him?
(a) Touch her face
(b) Read a book to him
(c) Hear her sing
(d) Kiss her on the cheek

12. What does the narrator admit he does not believe in when discussing matters with the blind man late at night in the story?
(a) The Devil
(b) Anything
(c) Humanity
(d) Beauty

13. The narrator describes the man narrating the television show about the Church as being from where?
(a) Canada
(b) Guam
(c) Portugal
(d) England

14. How long does the narrator say he’s been in his current position (of employment) when asked by the blind man?
(a) 8 months
(b) 1 year
(c) 3 years
(d) 2 years

15. What is playing on the television as the narrator’s wife exits upstairs in the story?
(a) A game show
(b) The weather report
(c) A late-night comedy show
(d) Entertainment news

Short Answer Questions

1. Where did the other half of the coin go that the blind man was left with, according to the narrator?

2. When was Raymond Carver’s short story collection Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? Published?

3. What did the narrator’s wife wash down all the pills from the medicine cabinet with while she was at Travis A.F.B.?

4. How long ago does the narrator’s wife say she and her husband bought their sofa?

5. The narrator says, “I remembered having read somewhere that the blind didn’t smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn’t” what?

(see the answer keys)

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