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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What name does Smith say would better suit the writing department in which she works at the University in “Peonies”?

2. What does Smith say has “rarely been random” in America in her essay “The American Exception”?

3. In “Something to Do,” Smith says that without love life can seem what?

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

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Smith say about love in “Something to Do”?

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

3. What are some of the various types of loneliness Smith describes people felt at the start of the lockdown in “Suffering Like Mel Gibson”?

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

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

6. What does Smith say artists of all kinds are asked at some point in their lives?

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

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Analyze the author’s choice to write this collection as a set of personal essay rather than memoir or fiction. How does this narrative choice impact the reader?

Essay Topic 2

In the final line of Intimations, Smith says that her “physical and moral cowardice have never really been tested, until now” (97). Write an essay exploring that line and including examples of this from the stories in Intimations.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay analyzing the way in which Smith and her mother try to create some kind of normalcy during the pandemic lockdown in “An Elder at the 98 Bus Stop.” How do they interact? What do they discuss? How is this attempt at normalcy possible or impossible?

(see the answer keys)

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