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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who wrote Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy?
(a) William Faulkner.
(b) Raymond Carver.
(c) Ernest Hemingway.
(d) Theodore Dreiser.

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

3. Gardner suggests that the dazzling poetry of Mercutio's Queen Mab speech is not the same poetry that who speaks?
(a) Juliet.
(b) Hamlet.
(c) Petrucio.
(d) Macbeth.

4. In what novel does Gardner note the rooftop scene as being one of surprise in Chapter 1?
(a) Crime and Punishment.
(b) Emma.
(c) Seize the Day.
(d) Nicholas Nickleby.

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

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

7. Who wrote Bartelby the Scrivener?
(a) Thomas Mann.
(b) James Joyce.
(c) Ernest Hemingway.
(d) Herman Melville.

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

9. Of whose writing does Gardner say that no reader can doubt the impulse to capture real life, "the special quality of country-Welsh craziness"?
(a) Dylan Thomas.
(b) Samuel Beckett.
(c) John Updike.
(d) Shakespeare.

10. 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"?
(a) William Faulkner.
(b) John Updike.
(c) Dylan Thomas.
(d) F. Scott Fitzgerald.

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

12. Where had John Gardner taught before Chico State College?
(a) Oberlin College.
(b) DePaul University.
(c) University of Ohio.
(d) New York University.

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

14. Gardner notes in Chapter 1 that Mercutio's madness is fantastic and what?
(a) Unbalanced.
(b) Justified.
(c) Phantasmic.
(d) Ironic.

15. What is one of the philosophers who has maintained that words inevitably distance us from the brute existence, according to Gardner in Chapter 1?
(a) Socrates.
(b) Nietzsche.
(c) Plato.
(d) Kierkegaard.

Short Answer Questions

1. What psychologist suggests that Jack and the Beanstalk is about penis envy?

2. Which author wrote A Tale of Two Cities?

3. What author of Over the Edge does Gardner cite in Chapter 1?

4. Gardner refers to boring, worn out language as being what kind of mask?

5. Gardner claims he has been happy writing since the age of what?

(see the answer keys)

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