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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. The day Smith looked at the peonies in the Jefferson Market Garden was just a few days before what Smith refers to as what?
(a) The Global Humbling.
(b) The Global Fumbling.
(c) The Global Submission.
(d) The Worldwide Humbling.

2. In “Suffering Like Mel Gibson” Smith discusses an article she read about a 17-year-old who committed suicide during the pandemic for what reason?
(a) She could not stand Zoom meetings.
(b) She did not have access to the internet from home.
(c) She could not see her friends.
(d) She did not get enough likes on social media.

3. What is the topic of conversation Smith overhears between two woman at a Subway shop in “Suffering Like Mel Gibson”?
(a) Feminism.
(b) The economy.
(c) Higher Education.
(d) Technology and children.

4. What is the title of the third story in Zadie Smith’s collection, Intimations?
(a) Something to Do.
(b) Something to write.
(c) How to fill time during a pandemic.
(d) Something to Say.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What two things does Smith say share in common their ability to distort one’s vision?

2. “Truly laboring people,” Smith says, have to adhere to this, to which an artist does not have to adhere?

3. At the start of “Suffering Like Mel Gibson,” which type of person does Smith say dreamed of an “isolation within isolation” (29) at the start of the pandemic?

4. 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)?

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

(see the answer key)

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