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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. What is the overall tone of Williams' remarks about the Puritans?
(a) Contempt.
(b) Wonder.
(c) Admiration.
(d) Jealousy.

2. What explanation does the narrator give for the Puritans' lack of imagination?
(a) They believe that God does not approve of imagination.
(b) They are afraid being imaginative would cut them off from the others.
(c) They think their lives depend on doing things the same way every time.
(d) They do not have materials with which to exercise their creativity.

3. What kind of woman is Freydis?
(a) Fierce.
(b) Submissive.
(c) Foolish.
(d) Dedicated.

4. Why are the Puritans important, according to the narrator?
(a) They begin to form the national character.
(b) They find a way to survive in an inclement environment.
(c) They are among the earliest European settlers.
(d) They bring Christianity to the New World.

5. What happens when Bridget Bishop attempts to plead not guilty?
(a) She is tortured until she confesses.
(b) She is allowed to speak on her own behalf.
(c) She is convicted of gross lying in the court.
(d) She is denied the chance to hear the witnesses against her.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does Cortez finally burn the city?

2. What does Columbus think of the New World when he reaches it?

3. Who is Freydis?

4. Who does the narrator address "Sir Walter Raleigh" to?

5. What does Gregory think that In the American Grain is meant to do for the American national identity?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Ponce de Leon forget his dog when he is driven away from Guadaloupe?

2. What happens to Columbus' sailors when the weather is bad and the ships go through violent storms?

3. Why does Gregory not fully appreciate the chapter on Cotton Mather?

4. What were some of the dangers faced by sailors on ships during a battle at sea?

5. How did Cortez feel about burning Tenochtitlan?

6. What role does Williams say that Edgar Allen Poe plays in American literature?

7. What does the narrator of "Sir Walter Raleigh" imply when he exhorts the Muse to sing of "the pursuit of beauty and the husk that remains," or when he says that Raleigh's England became "a mouthful of smoke sucked from the embers of a burnt weed"?

8. What does Williams think about Lincoln's assassin?

9. What does Williams think that Benjamin Franklin would say are the most important American virtues? Does Williams agree with Franklin? Why or why not?

10. How did Pire Rasles treat the Abnaki?

(see the answer keys)

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