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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What author does Gardner remark has a persistent mean streak in his writing?
(a) Joyce.
(b) Kerouac.
(c) Hemingway.
(d) Salinger.

2. With what older colleague did Gardner publish an anthology of fiction at Chico College?
(a) Michael Ewing.
(b) David Wellesley.
(c) James Fenway.
(d) Lennis Dunlap.

3. Who is the author of Death in Venice?
(a) Clifford Odets.
(b) Herman Melville.
(c) Thomas Mann.
(d) William Shakespeare.

4. Which author wrote A Tale of Two Cities?
(a) Steinbeck.
(b) Dickens.
(c) Bedlow.
(d) Melville.

5. What is, according to Gardner, the one quality in fiction that cannot be faked?
(a) Honor.
(b) Love.
(c) Beauty.
(d) Strangeness.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the first thing that Gardner states a writer needs to have in Chapter 1?

2. In Chapter 1, Gardner writes, "Though there are exceptions, as a rule the good novelist does not worry primarily about ____ brilliance."

3. Who is the author of Piers Plowman?

4. Which title does Raymond Carver say is the only one he recalls of John Gardner's manuscripts in the Forward?

5. Gardner states that the effective writer leads the reader into a continuous what?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Gardner write of Nabokov in Chapter 1?

2. How does Gardner define "setting," "plot," and "theme" in Chapter 1?

3. What is the "moronic setup" that Gardner relates in Chapter 1?

4. In Chapter 1, what does Gardner say the most common question of the aspiring writer is to him? What is the response?

5. Where did Gardner learn his method of writing?

6. What authors does Gardner use to illustrate language and character in Chapter 1?

7. What essential things must an aspiring author understand in order to pursue writing?

8. How does Gardner describe traditional plot, victim stories, and "epiphany stories?"

9. What state does good fiction elicit in the reader, according to Gardner?

10. What is the second indicator of talent that Gardner discusses in Chapter 1? What author does he cite in this?

(see the answer keys)

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