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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. In the conversation Smith overhears at a Subway shop, the two women discuss seeing a baby holding what item?
(a) His mother’s keys.
(b) A harmonica.
(c) An iPhone.
(d) An iPad.

2. 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) Resurrect the dead.
(c) Be younger.
(d) Vote for a different leader.

3. What example does Smith use in “Peonies” as a time when submitting might be better than resisting?
(a) When your alarm clock goes off.
(b) Torture.
(c) Disease.
(d) Peer pressure.

4. What does Smith say writers often write about at some point in their careers at the start of “Something to Do”?
(a) Why they write.
(b) The health benefits of writing.
(c) Writer’s block.
(d) How to write.

5. What does Smith say she believed to be the “cage of her circumstance” (3) when she was younger?
(a) Her race.
(b) Her sexual orientation.
(c) Her class.
(d) Her gender.

Short Answer Questions

1. In “Suffering Like Mel Gibson,” Smith says that suffering “is not relative; it is” (34) what?

2. What is the title of the fourth essay is Zadie Smith’s collection Intimations?

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

4. What does Smith say in “Suffering Like Mel Gibson” was the only relief people quarantining together had from one another?

5. What is the term Smith says reflects her resistance to the nature of her gender?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Smith say was missing from the American concept of death in “The American Exception”?

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

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

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

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

6. 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?

7. What is Smith doing at the very start of “Peonies’?

8. Describe the article Smith references in “Suffering Like Mel Gibson” about a 17-year-old during lockdown.

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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