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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is a towhee?
(a) a type of large rodent
(b) a type of domesticated parrot
(c) a brown and red snake
(d) a large bird

2. What does Dillard find out about muskrats and humans?
(a) they both like water
(b) if a muskrat is aware of human's presence, it will not appear
(c) they eat the same foods
(d) they're both nocturnal

3. What do the Eskimos do with the greens in their prey's stomach?
(a) throw them in the ocean
(b) feed them to their dogs
(c) they never look in the stomach
(d) eat them

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

5. Where are the answer to #163 going?
(a) to the ocean
(b) to the south
(c) to Tinker Creek
(d) to California

6. How much impact on any of the creatures, mountains, or creek around her does the author think she has?
(a) too much
(b) she has no impact at all
(c) very little
(d) as much as any other creature

7. For wild animals, Dillards sees enduring parasitic invasions as what?
(a) a way for animals to die
(b) something deadly
(c) as a blessing
(d) the cost of life

8. Dillard suggests that the physical world is "all touch and go." What does she mean by this?
(a) things happen really fast
(b) death is easy
(c) time doesn't wait for anyone
(d) life is uncertain

9. Dillard believes that few humans have been as cruel as what, in the natural world?
(a) hurricanes which kill plants and animals
(b) bugs who eat their prey live
(c) sharks that will eat almost anything
(d) the female preying mantis

10. What percentage of insects are parasites?
(a) five percent
(b) thirty percent
(c) forty percent
(d) ten percent

11. Eskimos believe it is a great honor to be incarnated as what?
(a) a polar bear
(b) a human
(c) a tiger
(d) a blue whale

12. The previous year, what did Hurricane Agnes do in the area?
(a) blew a tree down on top of Dillard's cabin
(b) dumped enormous amounts of rain
(c) it missed the area, so it did nothing
(d) wiped out all the flowers in the area

13. What principle has lead many physicists to mysticism?
(a) the answer to question 44
(b) the answer to question #128
(c) the answer to question 67
(d) the theory of relativity

14. After the butterflies finally leave, how does the sky seem to the author?
(a) empty
(b) like normal
(c) barren of color
(d) big and never ending

15. What does the term the term "northing" mean?
(a) types of birds that don't migrate
(b) someone who lives near the artic circle
(c) the name the Eskimoes use for themselves
(d) denotes traveling in a northerly direction

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Dillard mean when she says she's willing to sacrifice a little blood in order to be "in the thick of things?"

2. What is the "Principle of Indeterminacy?"

3. Dillard says if nature is not monstrous, then why does it appear that way to humans?

4. Dillard believes that if she waits patiently with no anticipation of what is to come, this will happen.

5. What does Dillard see as the difference between a parasite and a predator?

(see the answer keys)

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