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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the other type of poisonous snake besides the answer in #139, that lives around the creek area?
(a) timber rattler
(b) coral snake
(c) side winder
(d) cotton mouth

2. In Chapter 9 Dillard is uneasy and hears what seems to be gunshots. What did she actually hear?
(a) a cap gun
(b) a garbage truck backfiring
(c) firecrackers
(d) a motorcycle

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

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

5. When Richmond loses electricity Dillard says something happened at the governor's mansion. What?
(a) the first floor is flooded
(b) the security alarm quit working
(c) one bulb in the governor's mansion continues to glow
(d) the basement is destroyed

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

7. When Dillard comes upon a rooting acorn, she imagines what?
(a) an squirrel grabbing the acorn and ending its fragile life
(b) a giant oak, two hundred years from then
(c) reaching down to root and its shoot springing towards the heavens
(d) the acorn burying itself to come to life in the spring

8. When Dillard saw migrating Canadian geese fly, speeding across the duck pond, what did she think?
(a) that it was time to get wood for the winter
(b) that she should think about going south for the winter
(c) that she has never witnessed such energetic movement
(d) that she'd never seen so many large birds together

9. Dillard says if nature is not monstrous, then why does it appear that way to humans?
(a) nature is logical, though a logic humans can't comprehend
(b) humans see only the bad
(c) humans can't see the big picture
(d) it is human's emotional response to nature's illusory horrors

10. What does the author think the existence of parasites makes the world?
(a) more real
(b) unstable
(c) nothing, parasites don't affect the world
(d) a horrible place

11. What does Dillard see as the difference between a parasite and a predator?
(a) nothing they're both bad
(b) the predator is more honest
(c) at least one has a fighting chance when up against a predator
(d) it's easier to pick out the predator

12. At the end of the book, Dillard walks with two words in her mind. What are they?
(a) life and death
(b) yes and no
(c) glory and amen
(d) good and evil

13. What lures birds of all species out of their summer hiding places?
(a) seeds sprinkled on the ground
(b) a cloudy day
(c) a wet rain
(d) a cold snap

14. What would Dillard suggest for food instead of creature eating creature?
(a) manna
(b) bread and water
(c) no one needing food at all
(d) everyone being vegetarians

15. The balance enables her to think about the beauty without doing what?
(a) wanting to move to a large city and never be in nature again
(b) constantly remember the aspects of nature which she finds ugly
(c) making all of nature bad
(d) making all of nature good

Short Answer Questions

1. Ultimately, what does Dillard say about predators or parasites?

2. When ancient Hebrews sacrificed an animal to their god, how did they use the horns?

3. What does the term the term "northing" mean?

4. What does Dillard see as the price of life?

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

(see the answer keys)

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