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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. In “The American Exception,” Smith says that Americans attacked death as a series of what?
(a) Discrete problems.
(b) Bad decisions.
(c) Unfortunate events.
(d) Mysteries.

3. What is the title of the second essay in Zadie’s Smith’s collection, Intimations?
(a) Peonies.
(b) Intimations.
(c) Screengrabs.
(d) The American Exception.

4. What term does Smith reference in “The American Exception” which Trump used in reference to other countries he saw as inferior?
(a) "Shithole countries."
(b) "Unimportant countries."
(c) "Lowlife countries."
(d) "Crappy countries."

5. What is the title of the fourth essay is Zadie Smith’s collection Intimations?
(a) A Conversation between Jesus and Mel Gibson.
(b) Suffering like Mel Gibson.
(c) Suffering like Jesus.
(d) A Conversation with Jesus.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Smith say “demanded a new dawn” (11)?

2. Smith says that despite America’s feelings of being untouchable, as the pandemic progressed, what did America appear to lead the world in?

3. 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?

4. Which actor is in the director’s chair talking to Jesus in the meme someone sent Smith at the start of the pandemic?

5. Which philosopher does Smith cite when discussing the difference between the thinker and his real life?

Short Essay Questions

1. In what way does Smith agree with Trump’s sentiment that prior to the pandemic “we had no death” (12)?

2. What does Smith say is the only relief people in lockdown have from one another?

3. What does Smith say that artists learned in regards to privacy and time at the start of “Suffering Like Mel Gibson”?

4. What are some of the “special words....lurking on the horizon” (4) for women her age that Smith describes in “Peonies”?

5. What is one of the societal issues Smith says the pandemic lockdown has forced many people to face?

6. Whose speech does “The American Exception” begin with and what it is in regards to?

7. Describe the meme Smith references in “Suffering Like Mel Gibson.”

8. What does Smith say she does not need “a Freudian” to tell her regarding herself and the two other women her age staring at the tulips in Jefferson Market Garden?

9. What does Smith say about what disaster demands at the start of “The American Exception”?

10. How do “defenders of art typically justify its existence” (21) according to Smith?

(see the answer keys)

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