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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Sedaris justifies viewing soap operas in class by
(a) Creating an assignment in which students wrote their own soap operas.
(b) Arguing that soap operas were an eduring fom of writing.
(c) Creating a writing assignment in which students predicted upcoming events.
(d) Arguing that soap operas taught attention to character.

2. Why is it difficult for Sedaris to travel with a typewriter?
(a) The typewriter is heavy and cumbersome.
(b) Security usually does not know what a typewriter is.
(c) Security finds the typewriter unusual enough to stop him regularly.
(d) Sedaris insults security, and this calls attention to him and his typewriter.

3. Miss Sampson believes Sedaris lisps because
(a) He never learned to speak correctly.
(b) He cannot hear the sound of his own voice.
(c) He wants to stand out among other students.
(d) He has a lazy tongue.

4. Why is Sedaris offered a job teaching a writing workshop?
(a) He is friends with the department chair.
(b) He has been published several times.
(c) He has teaching experience.
(d) The scheduled professor quit at the last moment.

5. The irony of the fisherman's position is that
(a) They can no longer afford to live by the beach.
(b) They can no longer fish in the ocean.
(c) They can understand Lou Sedaris' scientific equations.
(d) They are not even trying to be tan.

6. Sedaris first compares his speech therapist to
(a) A football player.
(b) The devil.
(c) A supermodel.
(d) A government agent.

7. Where music is concerned, Sedaris' father could be described as a
(a) Skeptic.
(b) Dreamer.
(c) Professional.
(d) Realist.

8. Sedaris' attempt to recruit his guitar teacher for his jingle-singing act results in
(a) Acceptance.
(b) Rejection.
(c) Understanding.
(d) Comaraderie.

9. Sedaris fears his father is not up to the task of caring for his new dog, Sophie, because
(a) He is older now, and she is young and strong.
(b) She is violent and does not obey him.
(c) He is not as attentive to pets as he used to be.
(d) He is older now, and she is old and dying.

10. Sedaris resents his father's approach toward art because
(a) It seems to come easily to his father, yet he does not invest in it.
(b) He wants to be like his father, but cannot be.
(c) He knows his father's talent has not passed on to him.
(d) Art eludes both him and his father, but his father is viewed as an artist.

11. What instrument does Sedaris' father choose for him?
(a) Guitar.
(b) Piano.
(c) Trumpet.
(d) Flute.

12. Bonnie comes to enjoy New York when
(a) She visits the Plaza at tea time and discovers the real New York.
(b) She takes Sedaris' suggestion to dress appropriately.
(c) She visits the flea market with Sedaris and is pleasantly surprised by it.
(d) She visits the sites where no New Yorkers will visit.

13. Sedaris refuses to order dessert because
(a) He cannot pronounce it.
(b) It contains fattening creme fraiche.
(c) It contains non-traditional ingredients like luncheon meat.
(d) He is insulted by the waiter's suggestion that he is counting calories.

14. While Sedaris has been preoccupied with tanning, his father has been preoccupied with
(a) His fear of the ocean.
(b) Scientific questions.
(c) The Miss Emollient Pageant.
(d) The price of beachfront property.

15. Sedaris finally recognizes Mr. Mancini as a fellow outsider when
(a) He recognizes that Mancini is unhappy in his work.
(b) He recognizes that Mancini does not have any talent.
(c) He sees Mancini shopping in the boys' department for clothes.
(d) He sees Mancini getting harrassed at the mall.

Short Answer Questions

1. What Sedaris admires in his sister Gretchen is

2. Mr. Mancini claims to be

3. The title The Youth In Asia applies to

4. Sedaris' mother connects most closely with

5. Sedaris and his father seem to

(see the answer keys)

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