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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What does Dillard believe is destroyed in the flood?
(a) the creek bed
(b) a beaver's dam
(c) the bee hives in the field
(d) the plankton

3. What does the principle of indeterminacy invalidate?
(a) that the moon causes the tides
(b) the notion of cause and effect
(c) that hummingbirds can sit still
(d) that light travels in a circle

4. What does Dillard see as the price of life?
(a) having to work constantly for food
(b) death
(c) being eaten by a greater predator
(d) lack of control

5. What does Dillard believe about the death of the self?
(a) it would take a lifetime
(b) it is a part of life
(c) it is a type of transformation
(d) it is painless

6. In Chapter 14, Dillard quotes a fifth century Egyptian mystic as saying what?
(a) fall is the splash of color before the white of winter
(b) go and sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything
(c) winter gives rest, as spring energy
(d) meditate outside and you will know the outside

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

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

9. What does the author see as somewhat synonymous with the creator, or God?
(a) nature
(b) humans
(c) the sun
(d) energy

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

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

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

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

14. Dillard says that if plants had emotions, she would applaud this:
(a) their ability to fly in the teeth of it all
(b) their kindness
(c) their willingness to live in harmony
(d) their ability to tolerate other life forms

15. 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 either terrible or wonderful
(b) a balance between believing nature to be good or evil
(c) a balance between believing nature to be better than cities or not
(d) a balance between believing nature to be for animals or humans

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the "Principle of Indeterminacy?"

2. How does a young muskrat get fed?

3. What could happen if the caribou migrate out of the Eskimo's range?

4. What has Dillard decided is the meaning of death?

5. What does the author think about fish?

(see the answer keys)

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