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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

3. What does the blind man say “never ends” in the story?
(a) Pride
(b) Learning
(c) Sorrow
(d) Fantasy

4. The narrator says that the “was having a drink and” doing what when he “heard the car pull into the drive” with his wife and the blind man?
(a) Reading the paper
(b) Doing a crossword puzzle
(c) Watching TV
(d) Listening to the radio

5. 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) Climax
(b) Rising action
(c) Exposition
(d) Denouement

Short Answer Questions

1. The narrator tells the blind man that sometimes cathedrals have “devils and such carved into the front. Sometimes” what?

2. Where does the narrator tell the blind man the show about cathedrals has traveled to, where there are “paintings on the walls of this one church”?

3. What beverage does the blind man drink with his dinner in the story?

4. What is the name of Raymond Carver’s first published book of poems?

5. What does the blind man do as the narrator attempts to explain cathedrals to him?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are the narrator’s first impressions of Robert after his arrival? How is Robert dressed?

2. How does the narrator’s wife describe Robert’s marriage prior to his arrival in the story?

3. Why does the narrator say the blind man is coming to visit in the beginning of the story?

4. How does the narrator begin his drawing? What does his wife ask at this time?

5. What does the narrator offer to Robert after his wife passes out? How does Robert respond?

6. How does the narrator describe his experience in the final lines of the story?

7. Why does the narrator pity Beulah in the beginning of the story?

8. How does the narrator’s wife respond when he turns on the television? What conversation ensues?

9. What drives the narrative plot of “Cathedral”? What effect does this have on the plot’s structure?

10. What does the reader learn about the narrator when he and his wife discuss their friends prior to the blind man’s arrival?

(see the answer keys)

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