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

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

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

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

5. Where did Raymond Carver move to Chico, California from?
(a) Arkansas.
(b) Connecticut.
(c) Washington.
(d) Wyoming.

Short Answer Questions

1. In Chapter 1, Gardner writes that one is unable to write for everyone, "try to win the audience both of Saul Bellow and" whom?

2. Who is the author of Crime and Punishment?

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

4. What name does Gardner assign to the teenage daughter whose unknown father moves next door in Chapter 1?

5. In Chapter 1, Gardner states that "In a literary culture where the very notion of a 'masterpiece' is commonly thought" what?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. What does Gardner relate about the "author's character" in Chapter 1? How does he describe "special intelligence?"

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

6. What does Gardner remark about theme in Chapter 1?

7. What does Gardner remark of the author's sense of observation in Chapter 1?

8. What does Gardner say of writers with "bad taste" in language in Chapter 1?

9. What does Gardner assert of the author learning character through television in Chapter 1?

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

(see the answer keys)

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