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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. On one of their expeditions, King and his brother meet an unexpected enemy. What is this enemy?
(a) A black and white skunk.
(b) Poison ivy.
(c) A snake.
(d) A bear.

2. Whom does King meet while in college?
(a) His writing mentor.
(b) His future publisher.
(c) His future wife.
(d) His future agent.

3. What is one of King's last jobs before becoming a full-time writer?
(a) A high school English teacher.
(b) A night janitor for his wife's office.
(c) A worker in a laundry.
(d) A newspaper reporter.

4. How does King obtain money from his classmates?
(a) He writes clever short stories.
(b) He writes jokes and sells them.
(c) He writes term papers for them.
(d) He writes a novel based on one of Poe's stories and sells it at school.

5. What happens to Carrie several months later after its initial sale?
(a) The book is published in Spanish.
(b) The book sells its paperback rights to TNT for a television series.
(c) The publisher sells the paperback rights.
(d) The book is made into a movie.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does it prove valuable to King to work for a local newspaper?

2. Why does King describe the image in the second chapter the way he does?

3. How does King's mother die?

4. What does King suggest that readers who do not take writing seriously do?

5. What type of job does King believe writing to be?

Short Essay Questions

1. In a short paper, summarize the main points of King's life as an author.

2. What are some of the things King remembers from his childhood? How might they have affected his writing?

3. In what way is the chapter, What Writing Is, different from the usual book on writing?

4. What are some of the aspects of writing that King is not going to emphasize in the chapter, What Writing Is?

5. What relationship is there between writing as a career and writing as a passion? Explain in your own words.

6. Based on the chapters, C.V., and What Writing Is, what ideas justify King's statement that writing is a serious job?

7. What facts or ideas show the beginnings of King's career as a master of horror?

8. In what ways is the rabbit on the table of symbol of King's belief in magic and telepathy? Explain in your own words.

9. One of King's babysitters was particularly cruel. How might she have affected his later writings?

10. What inferences can you make from King's statement that writing is magic? Explain in your own words.

(see the answer keys)

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