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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 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) A Conversation with Jesus.
(d) Suffering like Jesus.

2. Who did people “thank God for” (16) after the pandemic when, Smith says, they were not seen as worthy of a $15/ hour minimum wage prior to the pandemic?
(a) Essential Workers.
(b) Teachers.
(c) Doctors.
(d) Bartenders.

3. Which type of person does Smith say was overjoyed with the new free time at the start of the pandemic?
(a) Children of artists.
(b) Artists without children.
(c) Artists with children.
(d) People living alone in city apartments.

4. In “Something to Do,” Smith says that without love life can seem what?
(a) Tragic.
(b) Empty and endless.
(c) Comical.
(d) Dark and depressing.

5. What is one of the social issues Smith said that pandemic forced many to have to face in her essay “Something to Do”?
(a) Bad marriages.
(b) Unloving parents.
(c) Lack of sick leave.
(d) Low minimum wage.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who were the few people, according to Smith, who did not have to “seek out something to do” during the pandemic?

2. Though the “bubble” of privilege can be penetrated, what bubble does Smith say cannot be penetrated?

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

4. Who is the author of the essay “Peonies”?

5. What song does Smith reflect on how the lyrics would change if it were written for a man?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What does Smith says is the true reason writers write when most else is “stripped away” (20)?

4. What does Smith say the country had begun to learn or discuss in regards to privilege prior to the virus?

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

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

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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