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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. The moment Smith realized that she had misunderstood the conversation between the women in the Subway shop was the moment Smith says she became aware of her what?
(a) Isolation.
(b) Nosiness.
(c) Hearing problems.
(d) Privilege.

2. Though private interests play a role in the lives of many Americans, what private interest does Smith say should not be one of them?
(a) Social security.
(b) Healthcare.
(c) The Postal system.
(d) Education.

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

4. Which president’s speech does Smith cite at the start of “The American Exception”?
(a) Bill Clinton.
(b) Donald Trump.
(c) Joe Biden.
(d) Barack Obama.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Which writer does Smith quote in her essay “Something to Do”?

2. Despite a pandemic’s ability to discriminate, says Smith, the structure of American hierarchy meant that which groups experience higher death rates?

3. What image of “bored children” at home does Smith use in “The American Exception”?

4. What is one thing Smith says that wealthy people would not do if suffering were relative?

5. While looking on at the garden, Smith thinks of a quote by Nabokov regarding his inspiration for which novel?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the moment Smith realized her own privilege in a Subway shop.

2. In “The American Exception” Smith says that Americans attack death as what?

3. 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?

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

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

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

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

8. Despite a plague's inability to discriminate, Smith says what about the structure of America’s hierarchy?

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

10. Why does Smith say it was hard for Americans to fathom a plague?

(see the answer keys)

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