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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What type of memoirs does Zinsser like reading?
(a) He likes reading immigrant memoirs.
(b) He only reads novels.
(c) He does not read memoirs.
(d) He likes reading memoirs about other writers and their experiences.

2. What are Zinsser's four articles of faith to writing well?
(a) Brevity, quick turnaround, clever sentences and little humanity.
(b) Clarity, simplicity, elasticity and minimalism.
(c) Clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity.
(d) Simplicity, brevity, busy sentences and proper grammer.

3. What is a requirement for good literary criticism?
(a) Having a comparitive literature degress.
(b) Frequenting the theatre often.
(c) Subscribing to arts magazines.
(d) Knowing the subject that the writer wants to write about.

4. What is an example of American television shows that use humor to talk about serious issues?
(a) The View.
(b) Saturday Night Live.
(c) The Today Show.
(d) The Evening News.

5. What is the best way to learn to write with humor?
(a) Go to comedy shows.
(b) Practice saying funny things aloud to friends and family.
(c) Read other humorous writing and emulate those styles.
(d) Hang out with funny people.

6. What happens when writers do not stick to proper grammar rules?
(a) It creates more bad writers.
(b) It makes readers believe that all writing is bad, and they won't ever read again.
(c) It makes readers mad.
(d) It distracts the readers and show conempt for the language.

7. What do people need to understand about science?
(a) It is easy to understand if given the chance.
(b) It can be learned at any point in life.
(c) It is a foundation that needs to be built upon.
(d) Only nerds can learn it.

8. What is different about every writer's voice?
(a) The tenses taht a writer chooses.
(b) Everything. Every writer has a unique voice that needs to be discovered.
(c) The sounds of a writers voice when speaking.
(d) The characters that writers speak through.

9. What is a memoir?
(a) They are books about other people written by ghostwriters.
(b) They are stories about immigrants.
(c) They can be about any life experience.
(d) They are fiction peices about real people.

10. What does the process of memoir writing do for a writer?
(a) It forces them to talk to distant relatives they hate.
(b) Nothing but write about everything he or she thinks about daily.
(c) It brings up related memories that were pushed into the subconsious.
(d) It brings back bad memories that the person tried to forget.

11. What does Zinsser think about this misconception?
(a) He agrees with it and thinks scientists cannot write at all.
(b) He agrees with it and thinks writers can never understand complex scientific theories.
(c) He states anyone can write about anything if his approach is correct.
(d) He disagrees with it, but offers no reason why.

12. Did Zinsser always want to write?
(a) No, his love of writing came after being deployed.
(b) He always wanted to write for a newspaper.
(c) No, it was a random interest.
(d) Yes, ever since he was a little boy.

13. What approach to a place should writers take?
(a) To go around asking the locals questions.
(b) To go within a place and see how it impacts the writer.
(c) Just writing ambiguously.
(d) Reading other travel pieces and compare them.

14. Where did Zinsser learn how to write?
(a) He learned while he was deployed during WWII.
(b) He taught himself.
(c) From reading the New York Herald.
(d) From reading good books.

15. What do writers focus on most?
(a) The final product.
(b) Their editors.
(c) Their audience.
(d) The writing process.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is a major problem with humorous writing?

2. Why do structured classes miss the point of teaching good writing?

3. Why is jargon, or corporate speak, so prevalent in business writing?

4. Do writers need to write all the time?

5. Why do criticism writers have to be at a higher level than other writers?

(see the answer keys)

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