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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 does the woman suspect that the man believes about his blasphemy?
2. Why does the main character find that the story she is working on is not an easy one to write?
3. What detail of the woman's train ride reinforces the motif of things that come close to happening but do not actually happen?
4. What does the narrator say "usually promises to be interesting" (19)?
5. What detail does the story give about the shape of the tape on the windows?
Short Essay Questions
1. What did the woman originally begin her story with that she later decides to edit out?
2. What paradox related to religion does the woman encounter in writing her story?
3. What happens when the woman visits a Baptist church?
4. How is the story that the woman is writing similar to the earth and different from a hurricane?
5. What arguments for and against including the newscasters in her story does the woman entertain?
6. What contradiction does Davis's first sentence introduce?
7. What is the woman's story about, and what is its major flaw?
8. 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?
9. Explain what the "yellow pall" is and what things in Davis's story it is attached to.
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?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
Write an essay that makes and defends a claim about the protagonist's search for meaning in "The Center of Things." Support your ideas with evidence from the text.
Essay Topic 2
Write an essay that analyzes the narrative voice of "The Center of the Story." Use quoted textual evidence to support your claims.
Essay Topic 3
Write an essay that affirms, refutes, or qualifies the following statement: "'The Center of the Story' is built around an analogy comparing a person's life to a written story." Use textual evidence to support your claims.
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This section contains 901 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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