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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is it about weather that Dillard believes is a phenomena worth writing about?
(a) talking about the weather is one of seven or eight phenomena worth discussing
(b) how often the modern weather predictions are right
(c) how often the modern weather predictions are wrong
(d) whether ancient people talked about the weather

2. What sport does the author play come spring?
(a) golf
(b) tennis
(c) basketball
(d) softball

3. Dillard believes that "weather overlaps" which causes what?
(a) snow on Easter
(b) sun shining when it's raining
(c) rain in the backyard and sun in the front yard
(d) there is only a few weeks of any season that is distinguishable from the former or following

4. What does the animal in question #1 do to to get Dillard's attention?
(a) meows loudly
(b) knocks her glasses off onto the floor
(c) bats her leg with his paw
(d) jumps in through the open window and climbs on Dillard's chest

5. What is one of Dillard's main occupations in the winter?
(a) knitting
(b) reading
(c) watching television
(d) sewing

6. When a scientist disrupted pine caterpillars' food trail, what happened?
(a) the caterpillars could not restart a new trail
(b) they stopped, and stayed still until they died
(c) they turned around and followed their trail back home
(d) half of caterpillars made a new trail off to the right

7. What is the literal act of seeing?
(a) watching for movement in the clouds
(b) opening the eyes and looking straight ahead
(c) using binoculars to see a great distance
(d) learning how to spot the different wildlife

8. Dillard sees so much in the natural world which seems paradoxical. Why?
(a) because half the day had sun, half did not
(b) because large trees would block the sun from smaller ones
(c) she saw beauty side by side with horrors
(d) because the same plant could heal you or kill you

9. What did Dillard do at one time about insects as a child?
(a) killed bugs with carbon tetrachloride and then pinned them on labeled boards
(b) watched them in the grass with a magnifying glass
(c) shooed them out of the house before her mother could kill them
(d) catch fireflies in glass jars to watch them glow

10. How do blind people who suddenly gain sight usually see objects at first?
(a) as all gray
(b) as patches of colored light
(c) as black and white
(d) as bigger than they really are

11. How does Dillard visualize the present?
(a) as the middle of everything
(b) as a hawk soaring on the breeze
(c) as a hummingbird that stops for nectar
(d) as a wave that explodes over her head

12. What changes about the view around Dillard's home when winter comes?
(a) winter opens vistas around Dillard's home so she can see other homes
(b) the view looks stark and empty
(c) the snow covered trees block her view of the creek
(d) nothing changes about the view

13. What does Dillard say happens the moment you are aware of the present?
(a) it no longer matters
(b) it freezes
(c) you lose it
(d) it becomes the past

14. How long does it take a tree to recreate ninety-nine percent of its living parts?
(a) one year
(b) thirty days
(c) twenty-five years
(d) a lifetime

15. Even though she is no scientist, what did Dillard decide she will do in her valley?
(a) plant a flower garden
(b) raise sheep
(c) she will explore her valley and report the unmapped frontiers
(d) erect a new cabin

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Dillard believe about nature and change?

2. Chlorophyll has a single atom of what substance in the center?

3. In Chapter 3, Dillard stalks a bird along the iced over creek. What kind of bird was it?

4. What does Dillard say hinders people from experiencing the now?

5. Dillard wrote, "the present is fleet." What did she mean by this statement?

(see the answer keys)

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