View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In what role was the author's mother performing in the play when she met her husband?
(a) Miss Malaprop.
(b) Juliet.
(c) Lady Bracknell.
(d) Katherina.

2. What does the author describe her father rinsing her with in the bathtub as a child in Chapter 1?
(a) A blue bucket.
(b) A purple metal cup.
(c) A red bucket.
(d) A white plastic cup.

3. The author directly correlates the embellishments of her childhood home to what in Chapter 1?
(a) Flowers.
(b) Lies.
(c) Doll houses.
(d) Truth.

4. What does the word "qualmish" mean in Chapter 3?
(a) Worried.
(b) Nauseated.
(c) Insistent.
(d) Gregarious.

5. The title of Chapter 3, ""That Old Catastrophe," is an allusion to what poem by Wallace Stevens?
(a) "Sunday Morning."
(b) "Odysseus."
(c) "Two Roads Diverged."
(d) "A Nail in the Coffin."

6. What did Bruce Bechdel teach?
(a) Calculus.
(b) English.
(c) Biology.
(d) Drama.

7. Who is the male leading role in the play where the author's parents met?
(a) Mr. Darcy.
(b) Macbeth.
(c) Petruchio.
(d) Hamlet.

8. In what year did Bruce Bechdel die?
(a) 1980.
(b) 1975.
(c) 1991.
(d) 1977.

9. From what children's book does the author's father's read to her in the bedtime panel in Chapter 1?
(a) Just So Stories.
(b) April Rabbits.
(c) James and the Giant Peach.
(d) Alice in Wonderland.

10. Who is the author of Delta of Venus?
(a) Elsa Gidlow.
(b) Emily Dickinson.
(c) Radclyffe Hall.
(d) Anaïs Nin.

11. Who is the "smooth-talking fortune hunter" in The Heiress that the author describes in Chapter 3?
(a) Morris Townsend.
(b) Edgar Spency.
(c) William James.
(d) James Waldrop.

12. How does the author describe her father's headstone in Chapter 2?
(a) It is a star.
(b) It is a Catholic cross.
(c) It is an obelisk.
(d) It is a Celtic cross.

13. The author says in Chapter 1 that being raised by her father was not like being raised by Jimmy Stewart but by whom?
(a) Donna Reed.
(b) Amanda Stewart.
(c) Bette Davis.
(d) Martha Stewart.

14. Where did the author convince her parents to buy her hiking boots during their trip to Europe in her childhood?
(a) Switzerland.
(b) Norway.
(c) France.
(d) Italy.

15. How old was the author when her father died?
(a) 21.
(b) 19.
(c) 22.
(d) 16.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is the heroine in Henry James's The Portrait of a Lady?

2. Who is the "cultured, dissipated, and penniless European art collector" that the heroine marries in The Portrait of a Lady?

3. What author had Bruce Bechdel become immersed in the year before he died?

4. The author describes her childhood home as being built in a brief moment of wealth from the lumber industry in what year?

5. What film does the author describe her parents taking the family to see when it opened in 1974?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 429 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample