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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. A musician must practice scales, and a writer must practice ______________.

2. Does the author believe good writing is the result of an inherent talent?

3. What is it that the bad writers mentioned above do that makes their writing terrible?

4. What is the main thing required to being a good writer?

5. What could cause a writer to write unclear?

Short Essay Questions

1. What happens to the reader when he or she reads cluttered writing?

2. Writers are told to study the market before submitting pieces. Why is this advice irrelevant?

3. What political period was the worst as far as bad writing?

4. What do all good writers do when it comes to improving?

5. How much information should a writer gather before writing a piece? Why is it important?

6. How do you know when an article is a failure?

7. Why are interviews so important to an article?

8. Why does Zinsser use brackets on students' papers?

9. Who is the real audience in a piece of writing?

10. Why does Zinsser want writers to cut out ornamental writing?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Rewrite the following sentence into an ending sentence and the first sentence in the following paragraph: The car drove off the cliff. Make it compelling. Make the reader want to keep on reading.

Ex: Ending Sentence: The car sped off the cliff. First sentence next paragraph: They all survived.

Essay Topic 2

Change the rhythm of the following two sentences to a more accurate rhythm based on the words:

They walked slowly. The cars zoomed past them in an endless glow of white and red lights as they elongated their glides.

Answer: The first sentence should be elongated to give a slow pace to the sentence. The second sentence should be short and crisp. The words can be exchanged between sentences.

Essay Topic 3

What was your definition of literature before reading this book? Has it changed or is it the same? Explain why or why not.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 723 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample