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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Gardner claims he has been happy writing since the age of what?
(a) 8.
(b) 6.
(c) 12.
(d) 16.

2. Gardner writes in Chapter 1 that when the central character is a victim there is no what?
(a) Action.
(b) Suspense.
(c) Empathy.
(d) Terror.

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

4. 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) Frank.
(c) James.
(d) Bob.

5. In what novel does Levin propose to Kitty, as cited in Chapter 1?
(a) Emma.
(b) Anna Karenina.
(c) Nicholas Nickleby.
(d) Crime and Punishment.

6. What author of Over the Edge does Gardner cite in Chapter 1?
(a) Franz Kafka.
(b) Harlan Ellison.
(c) Kurt Vonnegut.
(d) James Joyce.

7. Who is the author of All the King's Men?
(a) Robert Penn Warren.
(b) Ernest Hemingway.
(c) Franz Kafka.
(d) William Faulkner.

8. In Chapter 1, Gardner writes that one is unable to write for everyone, "try to win the audience both of Saul Bellow and" whom?
(a) Stephen King.
(b) Anton Chekhov.
(c) James Joyce.
(d) Charles Dickens.

9. What author does Gardner say has a deep misanthropic mistrust in Chapter 1?
(a) Flaubert.
(b) Dickens.
(c) Bedlow.
(d) Steinbeck.

10. To whose poetry and prose had Gardner made allusions to in the novel Grendel?
(a) Lord Byron.
(b) Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
(c) Percy Shelley.
(d) William Blake.

11. 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) Stanley Elkin.
(c) Joyce Carol Oates.
(d) Truman Capote.

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

13. What magazine does Gardner suggest for good literary work in Chapter 1?
(a) The New Yorker.
(b) The Reader's Digest.
(c) The London Book Review.
(d) The Londoner.

14. The two things that keep the common reader turning the pages, according to Gardner are story or what?
(a) Argument.
(b) Theme.
(c) Character.
(d) Mood.

15. What kind of intelligence does Gardner say is important to the writer in Chapter 1?
(a) Psychological.
(b) Storyteller's.
(c) Mathematics.
(d) Philosophical.

Short Answer Questions

1. Gardner compares Melville's Moby Dick with what in Chapter 1?

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. 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?

4. Who is the author of Piers Plowman?

5. What is, according to Gardner, the one quality in fiction that cannot be faked?

(see the answer keys)

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