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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through “The American Exception” .

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What “obsession” (6) does Smith liken to her resistance to nature as a youth, an obsessions she says many writers share?
(a) Control.
(b) Order.
(c) Chaos.
(d) Materialism.

2. In what city does Smith live at the start of “Peonies”?
(a) Los Angeles.
(b) New York.
(c) Brooklyn.
(d) Chicago.

3. What song does Smith reflect on how the lyrics would change if it were written for a man?
(a) Girls Just Want To Have Fun.
(b) (You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman.
(c) Just Like A Woman.
(d) I Am Woman.

4. What does Trump say we did not have prior to the pandemic, which Smith agrees?
(a) Quarantines.
(b) Disease.
(c) Death.
(d) Pandemics.

5. What is one of the ways in which Smith said she had tried to resist her own nature?
(a) By dying her gray hair.
(b) By speaking with a fake accent.
(c) By not keeping track of her menstrual cycles.
(d) By wearing fake nails.

Short Answer Questions

1. At which point does Smith say a man submits to nature?

2. What does Smith say the link to long life in America is?

3. As Smith stares into the garden of peonies near two other women her age, Smiths comments of what “gaudy symbol,” the flowers represent, “in the middle of a barren concrete metropolis” (3)?

4. At the end of “The American Exception,” what did Smith say states were forced to bid on during the pandemic?

5. What term does Smith reference in “The American Exception” which Trump used in reference to other countries he saw as inferior?

(see the answer key)

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