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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 image of “bored children” at home does Smith use in “The American Exception”?
(a) Staring zombie like at a screen.
(b) Climbing the walls.
(c) Crying from boredom.
(d) Twiddling their thumbs.

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

3. Which type of person does Smith describe as being shuffled “from one isolation to another and back again” (30)?
(a) Children of divorced parents.
(b) Doctors.
(c) Cheating spouses.
(d) Essential workers.

4. Which actor is in the director’s chair talking to Jesus in the meme someone sent Smith at the start of the pandemic?
(a) Burt Reynolds.
(b) Mel Gibson.
(c) Tom Hanks.
(d) Michael Douglass.

5. What does Smith say is the truest, most obvious reason why people write or make art?
(a) Because it is something to do.
(b) Because they have no other skills.
(c) Because they cannot live without creating art.
(d) Because they cannot get a real job.

Short Answer Questions

1. What term does Smith reference in “The American Exception” which Trump used in reference to other countries he saw as inferior?

2. Nabokov said the inspiration for his novel came from an article about an ape that drew what?

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

4. What does Smith liken Trump’s speech to after coming to her senses after the first part of his speech?

5. 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)?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What does Smith compare the way in which she packs her free time to at the start of “Peonies’?

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

4. How does Smith describe the space typically occupied by artists?

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

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

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

8. In what ways does Smith say she tried to resist what she felt was the cage of her gender when she was younger?

9. How does Smith describe the similarity and difference between privilege and suffering in “Suffering Like Mel Gibson”?

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

(see the answer keys)

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