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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through “Suffering Like Mel Gibson” .

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Smith liken Trump’s speech to after coming to her senses after the first part of his speech?
(a) White lies.
(b) Poison.
(c) Snake oil.
(d) Rotten apples.

2. What is one thing Smith says that wealthy people would not do if suffering were relative?
(a) Commit suicide.
(b) Work.
(c) Buy so many things.
(d) Seek therapy.

3. “Truly laboring people,” Smith says, have to adhere to this, to which an artist does not have to adhere?
(a) A boss’s whim.
(b) Traffic patterns.
(c) A time clock.
(d) A bus schedule.

4. What two things does Smith say share in common their ability to distort one’s vision?
(a) Privilege and suffering.
(b) Suffering and starvation.
(c) Privilege and disease.
(d) Suffering and Endurance.

5. What does Smith say has “rarely been random” in America in her essay “The American Exception”?
(a) Untimely death.
(b) COVID-19 cases.
(c) Presidential nominations.
(d) COVID-19 recoveries.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What is the topic of conversation Smith overhears between two woman at a Subway shop in “Suffering Like Mel Gibson”?

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

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

5. What type of person does Smith say has created some of the most powerful art she has seen?

(see the answer key)

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