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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through “Something To Do” .

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Smith say we had before the pandemic instead of death?
(a) Casualties and victims.
(b) Immortality.
(c) The flu.
(d) Universal healthcare.

2. Which writer does Smith quote in her essay “Something to Do”?
(a) Lottie Moshfegh.
(b) Ottessa Moshfegh.
(c) Odessa Mosher.
(d) Ottessa Moshe.

3. What is the setting at the start of “Peonies”?
(a) Jefferson Market Garden.
(b) The Manhattan Garden.
(c) The Brooklyn Gardens.
(d) The New York Botanical Gardens.

4. In “Something to Do,” Smith says that without love life can seem what?
(a) Empty and endless.
(b) Dark and depressing.
(c) Tragic.
(d) Comical.

5. Which philosopher does Smith cite when discussing the difference between the thinker and his real life?
(a) Plato.
(b) Kierkagaard.
(c) Socrates.
(d) Nietzsche.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is one of the ways in which Smith said she had tried to resist her own nature?

2. What does Smith say she believed to be the “cage of her circumstance” (3) when she was younger?

3. In “The American Exception,” Smith says that nobody in 1945 wanted to go back to 1939 unless it was to do what?

4. Though private interests play a role in the lives of many Americans, what private interest does Smith say should not be one of them?

5. What date was the speech Smith references at the start of “The American Exception”?

(see the answer key)

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