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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Gardner refers to boring, worn out language as being what kind of mask?
(a) Dramatic.
(b) Hamlet.
(c) Pollyanna.
(d) Need-for-approval.

2. In Chapter 1, Gardner states that "In a literary culture where the very notion of a 'masterpiece' is commonly thought" what?
(a) Dangerous.
(b) Immature.
(c) Impossible.
(d) Barbaric.

3. What name does Gardner assign to the teenage daughter whose unknown father moves next door in Chapter 1?
(a) Michelle.
(b) Laura.
(c) Sarah.
(d) Wanda.

4. What story of Robert Penn Warren's did Raymond Carver read in Gardner's class at Chico State College?
(a) "Last of the Mohicans."
(b) "Blackberry Winter."
(c) "To Have and Have Not."
(d) "Ulysses."

5. Of what author does Gardner say his heroes are clown-heroes knocked around by the universe?
(a) Kafka.
(b) Odets.
(c) James.
(d) Hemingway.

6. Gardner writes in Chapter 1 that if one studies with whom, does he learn that Shakespeare is better than Mickey Spillane?
(a) Dr. Martin Meyer.
(b) Dr. Stanley Fish.
(c) Dr. Andrew Dryd.
(d) Dr. Michael Mortenson.

7. Which author does Gardner say has a style at parties to take to the floor at any cost, telling funny stories?
(a) Bernard Malamud.
(b) Joyce Carol Oates.
(c) Stanley Elkin.
(d) Truman Capote.

8. Who is the author of Piers Plowman?
(a) Langland.
(b) Salinger.
(c) Miller.
(d) Joyce.

9. Gardner notes in Chapter 1 that all writing requires some measure of a ____ state.
(a) Fearful.
(b) Confident.
(c) Brave.
(d) Trance.

10. Which sci-fi author wrote A Canticle for Liebowitz?
(a) Kurt Vonnegut.
(b) Jack Humphries.
(c) Walter M. Miller, Jr.
(d) J.D. Salinger.

11. Who is one of the writers Gardner notes in Chapter 1 as having both a fine ear for language and also a fascination with the materials?
(a) Proust.
(b) Hemingway.
(c) Joyce.
(d) Fitzgerald.

12. What was Gardner's first wife's name?
(a) Sarah.
(b) Nora.
(c) Emily.
(d) Joan.

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

14. What is the name of the man who moves next door to his teenage daughter in Gardner's hypothetical story in Chapter 1?
(a) Bill.
(b) James.
(c) Bob.
(d) Frank.

15. Whose disguise in Jane Eyre does Gardner comment on as surprising in Chapter 1?
(a) Mr. Bryg.
(b) Mr. Rochester.
(c) Mr. Wolverton.
(d) Mr. Darby.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where did Raymond Carver move to Chico, California from?

2. Who is the author of Death in Venice?

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

4. Who wrote Bartelby the Scrivener?

5. What is one of the philosophers who has maintained that words inevitably distance us from the brute existence, according to Gardner in Chapter 1?

(see the answer keys)

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