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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 is the honest answer to the question most young writer's ask of "Do I have what it takes to be a writer?" according to Gardner?
(a) "Definitely no."
(b) "God only knows."
(c) "Definitely yet."
(d) "You'll know in time."

2. Who wrote Divine Comedy?
(a) Bloom.
(b) Joyce.
(c) Chekhov.
(d) Dante.

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

4. What masterpiece of James Joyce does Gardner suggest typing out for language growth in Chapter 1?
(a) "Ulysses."
(b) "The Dead."
(c) "The Wall."
(d) "Finnegan's Wake."

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?
(a) Kierkegaard.
(b) Nietzsche.
(c) Socrates.
(d) Plato.

Short Answer Questions

1. What word does Gardner use to mean a phrase is worn out and overused?

2. Where had John Gardner taught before Chico State College?

3. Gardner suggests that the dazzling poetry of Mercutio's Queen Mab speech is not the same poetry that who speaks?

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

5. What was Gardner's first wife's name?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

6. How does Gardner explain characterization and story through his hypothetical story in Chapter 1?

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

8. Who does Gardner refer to as the "best" novelists in Chapter 1? What lesson does he cite of them?

9. What does Gardner say of "recognizing the significant" in Chapter 1?

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

(see the answer keys)

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