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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. What was George Orwell's real name?

2. Under what circumstances did Walter Benjamin die?

3. What term best describes the type of literature written by Virginia Woolf?

4. How can the writings of H. L. Mencken BEST be described?

5. Who wrote "The Ring of Time?"

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Robert Louis Stevenson best known for today?

2. What are the particulars of Ivan Turgenev's "The Execution of Tropmann"?

3. What is the subject of Krim's "For My Brothers and Sisters in the Failure Business"? What feelings does Krim express in the essay?

4. What is the subject of E.B. White's "Once More to the Lake"? What is the message White relays about the state of the lake?

5. What is Junichiro Tanizaki's contribution to world literature? How has Tanizaki's writing style been characterized?

6. What views is Henry David Thoreau well known for? How did he believe one should live one's life?

7. What is the subject of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Crack-Up?" What extended metaphor does he use?

8. What level of literary output did G. K. Chesterton achieve in his lifetime?

9. What style is James Thurber known for? What was a common theme in Thurber's writing?

10. How does Seymour Krim's life compare to Mary McCarthy's? How did Krim's childhood impact his writing?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Nature and solitude converge in the essays "The Entrance to the Woods" by Wendell Berry and "The Solitude of the Country" by Samuel Johnson.

A) What is valuable/important to each man about nature? Are these views compatible?

B) How does solitude impact the experience of nature in both essays?

C) Compare the tones in the essays.

Essay Topic 2

Ambition is the topic of both Abraham Cowley's "Of Greatness" and Seymour Krim's "For My Brothers and Sisters in the Failure Business"?

A) Contrast the tone of each essay. What might tone reveal about the author's own state of mind?

B) What message does each author have the audience? What should the reader take away from the essay?

C) What advice might Cowley have for Krim?

Essay Topic 3

Roland Barthes in "Leaving the Movie Theater" and Gayle Pemberton in "Do He Have Your Number, Mr. Jeffrey" both speak about personal experiences they have had with movies.

A) How is the movie experience different for each author? What does each author take away from their movie watching experience?

B) How might race impact the movie watching experience? Would Barthes' experience with movie watching be any different if he was confronted with actors on screen of a different race?

(see the answer keys)

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