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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the blind man remark about the narrator’s television set, saying, “Don’t ask me how, but I can tell”?
(a) That the sound seems rough
(b) That it is an old television set
(c) That it is a color television set
(d) That it is a small television set

2. What question does the blind man ask the narrator as the narrator begins drawing the cathedral in the story?
(a) What kind of building are you drawing here, bub?
(b) Never thought anything like this could happen in your lifetime, did you, bub?
(c) Where’s your wife when you need her, huh, bub?
(d) Where are you going to put the steeple and the people, bub?

3. Where was Raymond Carver born?
(a) Yakima, Washington
(b) Mountain Home, Idaho
(c) Clatskanie, Oregon
(d) Jackson, Wyoming

4. What does the narrator’s wife say she is going to do upstairs as she exits, leaving the narrator and the blind man alone after dinner?
(a) Read a book
(b) Call a friend on the telephone
(c) Take a bath
(d) Change into her robe

5. What beverage does the blind man drink with his dinner in the story?
(a) Milk
(b) Tea
(c) Water
(d) Coffee

6. What does the blind man do as the narrator attempts to explain cathedrals to him?
(a) He taps on the table repeatedly
(b) He runs his fingers through his beard
(c) He snaps his fingers rhythmically
(d) He hums a tune softly

7. What are the supports called on a cathedral that are built to steady a structure by opposing its outward thrusts?
(a) Buttresses
(b) Pillars
(c) Trusses
(d) Crossbeams

8. 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) Granite
(c) Slate
(d) Sandstone

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

10. The blind man tells the narrator as he continues his drawing of the cathedral, “You got it, bub. I can tell. You didn’t think you could. But you can, can’t you? You’re cooking with” what?
(a) Gas now
(b) Charcoal
(c) Dry tinder
(d) Grease

11. Where in the narrative does the rising action begin?
(a) When the cathedral has been drawn
(b) When the wife gets divorced
(c) When the wife meets the blind man
(d) When the blind man arrives

12. How did the blind man’s wife die?
(a) She died of cancer
(b) She was in a car accident
(c) She committed suicide
(d) She died in childbirth

13. What does the protagonist in “Cathedral” gain by the end of the story?
(a) Anger and resentment
(b) Empathy and understanding
(c) Political favor
(d) Money and security

14. What vegetable does the narrator’s wife throw when she has an argument with the narrator in the beginning of the story?
(a) A potato
(b) A cucumber
(c) A carrot
(d) A pepper

15. What does the narrator say about his and his wife’s sleeping patterns in the story?
(a) I am always the first to bed
(b) My wife and I hardly ever went to bed at the same time
(c) She is always the first to bed
(d) We always go to bed at the same time

Short Answer Questions

1. What kind of paper does the blind man ask the narrator to go get when they are talking late at night?

2. What word from the story means large and heavy-looking?

3. What artistic forms are addressed in “Cathedral”?

4. How does the narrator describe the physicality of the blind man after his arrival?

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

(see the answer keys)

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