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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the narrator say "usually promises to be interesting" (19)?
(a) A flood.
(b) A hurricane.
(c) A religious crisis.
(d) A death.

2. What does the woman suspect that the man believes about his blasphemy?
(a) It is no one's business but his own.
(b) It caused his illness.
(c) It caused the hurricane.
(d) It is the reason she is angry at him.

3. What does the woman think might be preventing her from committing to a center for her story?
(a) Fear.
(b) Curiosity.
(c) Hope.
(d) Laziness.

4. Why was the woman reading the Bible during the period she writes about in her story?
(a) Because she wanted to know exactly what it said.
(b) Because she needed comfort during the hurricane.
(c) Because it was the High Holy Days.
(d) Because she wanted to use Biblical allusions in her writing.

5. On her train ride, what does the woman realize she has not given much thought to?
(a) Her friend's illness.
(b) The newscasters.
(c) The devil.
(d) Her next story.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why are rams' horns being blown all around the city?

2. Where is the woman's landlady from?

3. In what religion are the High Holy Days a sacred time?

4. What does the sick man want when he calls the main character?

5. Who is "thinking of writing a letter to the President" (20)?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the woman's story about, and what is its major flaw?

2. Who are the people in the story that the writer is working on?

3. What comment does the story make about paring a story down to the essentials, and what does this have to do with Davis's own style?

4. What did the woman originally begin her story with that she later decides to edit out?

5. Why does the woman watch the news so often, and what does she hear on the news that makes her feel exicted?

6. Why does the man in the main character's story think that he is dying, and what does he do about it?

7. What book has the woman been reading, and what story is she specifically interested in?

8. In the end of "The Center of the Story," what does the woman realize about the emptiness at the center of her story?

9. What arguments for and against including the newscasters in her story does the woman entertain?

10. Besides the timing of his phone call, what connects the man who thinks he is dying to the rest of the story the woman is writing?

(see the answer keys)

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