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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How did the Romans use the horns of the altar?
(a) to tie their goats to which worshipping
(b) to kill geese with
(c) used to move the altar
(d) they'd grasp the horns and swear by them

2. What makes birds harder to watch than insects?
(a) they are not often on the ground
(b) they fly faster
(c) birds seem much more aware of their surroundings
(d) there are less of them

3. What has Dillard decided is the meaning of death?
(a) one merely joins the earth at death
(b) a way to join the creator
(c) it must happen or the earth could not sustain everything
(d) a journey to a far land

4. What does the author believe about the difference between abundant plant life and abundant insect life?
(a) insects will always outnumber plants
(b) the proliferation of plant life, does not disturb humans the way an overabundance of insects do
(c) plants would be more abundant without insects
(d) abundant insect life is healthier for the earth

5. What does Dillard say is the driving force after reproduction in the animal kingdom?
(a) having a nice place to live
(b) knowing God
(c) protecting the young
(d) finding food

6. In Chapter 13, the author is beginning to find a balance in her thinking about nature. What is that balance?
(a) a balance between believing nature to be for animals or humans
(b) a balance between believing nature to be either terrible or wonderful
(c) a balance between believing nature to be good or evil
(d) a balance between believing nature to be better than cities or not

7. What are the "horns of the altar?"
(a) the part of the altar that holds the banner
(b) the edges
(c) the center
(d) the four corners of an altar

8. What did a Russian botanist discover about locusts?
(a) locusts have too many babies
(b) locusts will eat other insects
(c) locusts breed in the water
(d) locusts are merely grasshoppers under stress

9. What does the author think about as she watches the flood waters?
(a) the well won't run dry for a while
(b) what the animals do in a flood
(c) the waters are very powerful
(d) surf's up

10. What does the author think about fish?
(a) they are fairly clean food
(b) they are spirit food
(c) they are rather dumb water inhabitants
(d) they are quiet animals

11. In Chapter 14, what have arrived in swarm from the Hudson Bay area?
(a) house wrens
(b) monarch butterflies
(c) sparrows
(d) lunar moths

12. When ancient Hebrews sacrificed an animal to their god, how did they use the horns?
(a) to strenthen the altar for a larger animal
(b) they didn't use them
(c) poured blood into the horns
(d) to cage the animal

13. How does the author see the violence in the natural world?
(a) as a mistake God made
(b) as something that needs changed
(c) as inevitable
(d) as a symbolic sacrifice

14. How did early man view locusts?
(a) as a plague sent by the devil
(b) locusts were thought to be a plague sent by God
(c) as a visitation from heaven
(d) as the harbringer of a natural disaster

15. When do Eskimos hunt caribou?
(a) at the end of spring
(b) at the beginning of winter
(c) in the fall
(d) right before summer

Short Answer Questions

1. Dillard suggests that the physical world is "all touch and go." What does she mean by this?

2. What does Dillard say about the muskrat fur?

3. In Chapter 14, Dillard quotes a fifth century Egyptian mystic as saying what?

4. Ultimately, at the end of the book, what is Dillard's overwhelming feeling?

5. For wild animals, Dillards sees enduring parasitic invasions as what?

(see the answer keys)

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