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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. The narrator claims that life for both sexes is a "perpetual _______."

2. During which month does the narrator visit the two colleges?

3. The narrator finds that the woman "is all but absent from ________."

4. What year is this story set in?

5. According to the narrator's research, what practice is common in the treatment of women throughout history?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does reading the newspaper in Chapter 2 make the narrator conclude?

2. According to the narrator, what challenges will Mary Carmichael face as a writer?

3. Why is the beadle upset that Mary is walking on the grass of the men's college?

4. What does the narrator urge the Carmichael's of the world to ignore?

5. In conversing with a friend who works at the women's college, what does the narrator discover about the financial difference between women and men?

6. What tone is pervasive throughout the poem by Lady Winchilsea that the narrator recites?

7. How does Woolf preempt the excuses she anticipates hearing from women who are not writing?

8. What does the narrator think that Coleridge meant by a mind that is androgynous?

9. What does Woolf encourage women to ignore when setting out to write?

10. What does the narrator attribute to the insanity of a woman like Judith?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Is A Room of One's Own a work of fiction, or merely an essay? Discuss the structure of the story and the elements of fiction within it.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss the consistent references to rhythm and flow throughout the text. What imagery evokes a rhythmic flow in the narrator's story? What does Woolf explicitly say about rhythm and unity?

Essay Topic 3

What major obstacles do women writers face, according to the narrator? Provide and describe three examples from the text. At what time, and why, did these obstacles exist? Were they overcome? How? What obstacles still exist?

(see the answer keys)

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