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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In “The American Exception,” Smith says that nobody in 1945 wanted to go back to 1939 unless it was to do what?
(a) Vote for a different leader.
(b) Change the course of history.
(c) Be younger.
(d) Resurrect the dead.

2. What image of “bored children” at home does Smith use in “The American Exception”?
(a) Climbing the walls.
(b) Crying from boredom.
(c) Staring zombie like at a screen.
(d) Twiddling their thumbs.

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

4. Nabokov said the inspiration for his novel came from an article about an ape that drew what?
(a) His own cage.
(b) His captors.
(c) Bananas.
(d) His self-portrait.

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 wearing fake nails.
(c) By speaking with a fake accent.
(d) By not keeping track of her menstrual cycles.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Trump say we did not have prior to the pandemic, which Smith agrees?

2. 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)?

3. What is the setting at the start of “Peonies”?

4. What does Smith say a man can bend to his will?

5. What former British Prime Minister does Smith reference at the end of “The American Exception”?

(see the answer key)

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