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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. Who wrote The World According to Garp?
(a) Raymond Carver.
(b) Michael James.
(c) George Glass.
(d) John Irving.

2. What is one of the great questions of the moment which is addressed in The World According to Garp?
(a) Environment.
(b) Feminism.
(c) Race relations.
(d) Globalization.

3. Publishing houses tend to have what, according to Gardner in Chapter 3?
(a) Discrimination.
(b) Egotism.
(c) Talent.
(d) Specializations.

4. What other author did Herman Melville have among his circle of friends?
(a) Joyce.
(b) Conrad.
(c) London.
(d) Hawthorne.

5. Who is cited as the head of the writing program at Johns Hopkins and favors new and strange styles?
(a) William Glass.
(b) John Barth.
(c) Max Apple.
(d) Kurt Vonnegut.

Short Answer Questions

1. Gardner writes that authors are almost never satisfied with the ____ job their publishers do.

2. Gardner states in Chapter 3 that for a young novelist, an agent is all but what?

3. To which editor at New American Library did Gardner send The Sunlight Diaries?

4. What experimental writer does Gardner mention having been moved and delighted by in Chapter 2?

5. In Chapter 2, Gardner notes that "The wide range of opinion in a class affords increases the writer's chance of getting a _____."

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Gardner write of the standard technique of teaching writing in Chapter 2?

2. What is the "best" way to sustain a living as a writer, according to Gardner?

3. What does Gardner say regarding the study of philosophy and psychology?

4. Why is writing usually rejected, according to Gardner?

5. What are some of the qualities that should make an aspiring writer leave a program?

6. Describe some of the qualities of bad writing workshops in Chapter 2.

7. What does Gardner say of editors in Chapter 3? What can one do to appeal to an editor?

8. What does Gardner say of finding support for the author in Chapter 3?

9. Are all good writers good teachers? What does Gardner say of this in Chapter 2?

10. Why must a teacher avoid projecting their aesthetic view on writers?

(see the answer keys)

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