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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. How does Nancy's son get home from school in "Pretty Nancy"?
(a) Schoolbus.
(b) Taxi.
(c) A private car.
(d) Nancy picks him up.

2. What does Skip tell Joan about his son in "Fathers, Sons, Screaming Eagles"?
(a) He moved to Canada to avoid the draft.
(b) He hasn't talked to him in years.
(c) He has been missing since Mother's Day.
(d) He went AWOL.

3. Where does Didion say she used to eavesdrop on people's conversations thinking "it was a good way to learn about life" (23) in "Getting Serenity"?
(a) Restaurants.
(b) The Airport.
(c) The Post Office.
(d) The Greyhound.

4. According to Didion in "A Trip to Xanadu," in what year did San Simeon become a state monument?
(a) 1958.
(b) 2020.
(c) 1979.
(d) 1985.

5. Where did the second speaker in "Getting Serenity" first start gambling?
(a) Vietnam.
(b) L.A.
(c) Atlanta.
(d) Nevada.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is one of the newspapers that the author lists as one of the few that do not make her feel as though "the oxygen has been cut off from [her] brain tissue" (20)?

2. What does the newsman want Nancy to do as she answers the first question he asks her in "Pretty Nancy"?

3. In "On Being Unchosen by the College of One's Choice," what does Joan say her friend was disappointed about in her 4-year-old's reference letters?

4. How old is the man who speaks second in "Getting Serenity" who states that the city has "destroyed" (23) him?

5. What does Nancy tell Joan she does not believe in being at the end of "Pretty Nancy"?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "A Trip to Xanadu," what is the castle people could see from Highway 1 and who built it?

2. Describe the first female speaker in "Getting Serenity."

3. Where does Didion say she felt she needed to be in the days following the Gambler's Anonymous meeting in "Getting Serenity"?

4. What happened when Joan wrote a paper for one of her friends at Stanford? What was the paper about? What grade did he get? What grade did she get?

5. What does Nancy Reagan show Joan at the State Capital and what does she say about it?

6. What do the tour guides in "A Trip to Xandadu" say about Hearsts sons?

7. What does Walter Davis say about his perspective on the war at the end of "Fathers, Sons, and Screaming Eagles"?

8. What does Joan say about the "great adventure" the men who fought in the 1940s compared to their sons "great adventure" (40) in Vietnam?

9. Who is Skip Skivington and what does he tell Joan about his son in "Fathers, Sons, and Screaming Eagles"?

10. In what way does the newsman in "Pretty Nancy" try to manipulate the moment to achieve his desired outcome?

(see the answer keys)

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