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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What literary genre emphasizes the intimate, and sometimes unflattering, information about details of the poet's personal life, such as in poems about mental illness, sexuality, and despondence?
(a) Realistic poetry.
(b) Confessional poetry.
(c) Truthful poetry.
(d) Sinful poetry.

2. Who was the consulting editor on The Journals of Sylvia Plath?
(a) Anne Stevenson.
(b) Assia Wevill.
(c) Ted Hughes.
(d) Frances McCullough.

3. Who prescribed antidepressants for Plath a few days before her death?
(a) Dr. Hefner.
(b) Dr. Hollingsworth.
(c) Dr. Holiday.
(d) Dr. Horder.

4. A. Alvarez was initially much more impressed with Ted--thinking of Sylvia as __________.
(a) A trophy wife.
(b) A dowdy little housewife.
(c) The perfect woman.
(d) A literary genious.

5. How many words did Ted Hughes cut from Linda Wagner-Martin's manuscript?
(a) 1,800.
(b) 15,000.
(c) 3,700.
(d) 11,000.

6. Whose biography of Sylvia Plath did Olwyn Hughes laud?
(a) Ronald Hayman's.
(b) Janet Malcolm's.
(c) Anne Stevenson's.
(d) A. Alvarez's.

7. Whose memoir depicting Sylvia Plath did Olwyn Hughes criticize relentlessly?
(a) Janet Malcolm's.
(b) Ted Hughes'.
(c) A. Alvarez's.
(d) Anne Stevenson's.

8. When did the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church begin?
(a) 13th Century A.D.
(b) 12th Century A.D.
(c) 11th Century A.D.
(d) 14th Century A.D.

9. What biography mentioned a cloth beneath Sylvia's head as she inhaled the gas fumes and a testimonial statement by her doctor that she had been in a dire mental condition?
(a) Bitter Fame.
(b) The Unraveling Archive: Essays on Sylvia Plath.
(c) The Haunting of Sylvia Plath.
(d) Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness: A Biography.

10. Who was named the literary agent for the writings of Sylvia Plath after her death?
(a) Janet Malcolm.
(b) Ted Hughes.
(c) Olwyn Hughes .
(d) Dido Milroy.

11. When was Anne Stevenson born?
(a) 1933.
(b) 1922.
(c) 1935.
(d) 1927.

12. Whom had the second installment of The Savage God pulled from the Observer?
(a) A. Alvarez.
(b) Sylvia Plath.
(c) Ted Hughes.
(d) Anne Stevenson.

13. What refers to a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women?
(a) Feminism.
(b) Civil rights.
(c) Modernism.
(d) Post-modernism.

14. What reprinting of letters, in which Sylvia wrote to her mother and which displayed her nice daughter side, was published by Plath's mother?
(a) Love, Sylvia.
(b) A Loving Correspondence.
(c) A Daughter Far Away.
(d) Letters Home.

15. Anne Stevenson explained in Part Two: Chapter I that she had been commissioned to write a story about Sylvia Plath in a series for Penguin Books called __________.
(a) Fascinating Women.
(b) The Women Everybody Should Know.
(c) Women of History.
(d) Lives of Modern Women.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where did A. Alvarez publish the first "official" bad review of Bitter Fame?

2. Where was A. Alvarez born?

3. A. Alvarez noted that toward the end of her life, Sylvia's once reserved persona was replaced with an aggressive one, most apparent when she was doing what activity?

4. When was Sylvia Plath born?

5. Who wrote the biography Bitter Fame?

(see the answer keys)

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