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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What kind of paper does the blind man ask the narrator to go get when they are talking late at night?
(a) Wax paper
(b) Heavy paper
(c) Tissue paper
(d) Typewriter paper

2. For what literary genre is author Raymond Carver most well known?
(a) Minimalist fiction
(b) Epic literature
(c) Science fiction
(d) Absurdist drama

3. How old does the narrator describe the blind man as being?
(a) In his early twenties
(b) In his late forties
(c) In his early fifties
(d) In his late thirties

4. How long is the blind man staying with the narrator and his wife in the story?
(a) 1 night
(b) 10 nights
(c) 3 nights
(d) 6 nights

5. In his attempt to describe cathedrals, the narrator tells the blind man that they are built out of stone and sometimes out of what?
(a) Marble
(b) Sandstone
(c) Slate
(d) Granite

6. Of his knowledge of cathedrals, the blind man says that he knows from the television show that they took about how many years to build?
(a) 20-30
(b) 40-60
(c) 150-200
(d) 50-100

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

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

9. What novelist was Raymond Carver’s mentor and teacher?
(a) Margaret Fuller
(b) Henry David Thoreau
(c) Horace Greeley
(d) John Gardner

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

11. What are the central motifs in “Cathedral”?
(a) Vision and blindness
(b) Strawberries and fruit
(c) Blood and music
(d) Marriage and weddings

12. How does the narrator describe the blind man’s attire when he arrives?
(a) Shoddy
(b) Spiffy
(c) Clownish
(d) Regal

13. When the narrator’s wife first contacted the blind man after working for him, she called him from what state?
(a) Missouri
(b) Tennessee
(c) Indiana
(d) Alabama

14. 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) A Baptist church
(c) An Islamic mosque
(d) A Catholic church

15. In what year was the anthology entitled Cathedral published?
(a) 1962
(b) 1974
(c) 1947
(d) 1983

Short Answer Questions

1. The narrator finds a pen for the blind man where in his house?

2. The narrator notes in the story that “A wink is the same thing as” what “to a blind man”?

3. What tool does the narrator note the blind man does not use after his arrival?

4. What does the narrator do when the blind man says after the drawing is complete, “Take a look. What do you think?”

5. What does the narrator admit he does not believe in when discussing matters with the blind man late at night in the story?

(see the answer keys)

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