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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 1, The Writer's Nature, Pages 34-72.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Gardner compare to the floors and structural supports in a fine old mansion in Chapter 1?
(a) Plot.
(b) Action.
(c) Theme.
(d) Character.

2. Which title does Raymond Carver say is the only one he recalls of John Gardner's manuscripts in the Forward?
(a) The Life and Times of Chaucer.
(b) Grendel.
(c) Nickel Mountain.
(d) The King's Indian.

3. What word does Gardner use to mean a phrase is worn out and overused?
(a) Sentimental.
(b) Cliche.
(c) Trite.
(d) Ironic.

4. Who is the author of Crime and Punishment?
(a) Flannagan.
(b) Joyce.
(c) Dostoevsky.
(d) Nabokov.

5. What book was Gardner writing when he remembered the altered sense coming over him while in the last chapter?
(a) The Resurrection.
(b) Nickel Mountain.
(c) October Light.
(d) Grendel.

Short Answer Questions

1. What story of Robert Penn Warren's did Raymond Carver read in Gardner's class at Chico State College?

2. Of which writer does Gardner say, "the brilliant language with which he describes a minor character cannot help but suggest that the words he chooses are more important to him than the token secretary behind the desk"?

3. What does Gardner say "breeds success" in Chapter 1?

4. Who is the author of Piers Plowman?

5. Gardner notes in Chapter 1 that Mercutio's madness is fantastic and what?

(see the answer key)

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