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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Where is Moody A.F.B. located?
(a) Kansas
(b) Georgia
(c) New Jersey
(d) California

2. According to the narrator’s wife, how many people were in attendance at the blind man’s wedding?
(a) 2
(b) 17
(c) 25
(d) 4

3. Where is Travis A.F.B. located?
(a) New Jersey
(b) Georgia
(c) California
(d) Kansas

4. Where does the narrator spread out the pen and paper when he returns with it in the story?
(a) On the kitchen counter
(b) On the sofa
(c) On the floor
(d) On the coffee table

5. How did the narrator’s wife maintain contact with the blind man since they last saw one another in person?
(a) They communicated by fax machine
(b) They wrote emails to each other
(c) They wrote letters to each other
(d) They mailed tapes to each other

6. What instruction does the blind man give to the narrator as he draws the cathedral in the story?
(a) Press hard
(b) Fill in all the details
(c) Lightly now
(d) Draw slowly

7. The narrator says, “I remembered having read somewhere that the blind didn’t smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn’t” what?
(a) Tell how other people did it
(b) See the smoke they exhaled
(c) Fully share the pleasure of it
(d) Avoid burning their faces

8. When the narrator’s wife first contacted the blind man after working for him, she called him from what facility?
(a) A hospital
(b) An Air Force Base
(c) A Navy Base
(d) A train station

9. Who is the protagonist of “Cathedral”?
(a) The narrator’s wife
(b) The narrator
(c) Barry Fitzgerald
(d) Robert

10. 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 gets louder
(c) It goes off the air
(d) It transitions to the desert

11. What word from the story means large and heavy-looking?
(a) Massive
(b) Derivative
(c) Diminutive
(d) Incremental

12. The blind man tells the narrator when he arrives that he hadn’t been on a train in almost how long?
(a) 20 years
(b) 30 years
(c) 40 years
(d) 10 years

13. What term refers to the portion of a story that introduces the important background information, such as the narrator’s descriptions of his wife’s history with the blind man in “Cathedral”?
(a) Denouement
(b) Rising action
(c) Climax
(d) Exposition

14. At the end of the story, the narrator says, “I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn’t feel like I was” what?
(a) In my right mind
(b) Physically there
(c) Imagining anything
(d) Inside anything

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Where in the narrative does the rising action begin?

2. The narrator surmises of the blind man’s wife that she could wear what in her nostril and it wouldn’t make a difference?

3. How does the narrator’s wife look at him when he turns on the television during the talk with the blind man after dinner?

4. When does the narrator say his wife was to marry her fiancé when she worked for the blind man?

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

(see the answer keys)

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