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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Under what pseudonym was The Bell Jar originally published?
(a) Johanna Mills.
(b) Melissa Bouvier.
(c) Victoria Lucas.
(d) Cassandra Owens.

2. Olwyn didn't write her own book because she wasn't a writer and, as Ted told her, no one would have ________.
(a) Been willing to publish it.
(b) Understood her language.
(c) Believed her account.
(d) Bought the book.

3. Where did Janet Malcolm travel to meet with Anne Stevenson in Part Two: Chapter I?
(a) Durham, England.
(b) Helmsley, England.
(c) Beaconsfield, England.
(d) Shirebrook, England.

4. What university did Sylvia Plath attend in England?
(a) Exeter University.
(b) Oxford University.
(c) Cambridge University.
(d) Rhodes University.

5. When did the bomb drop on Hiroshima?
(a) 1944.
(b) 1946.
(c) 1947.
(d) 1945.

6. When was The Bell Jar first published?
(a) 1960.
(b) 1961.
(c) 1963.
(d) 1965.

7. When did Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath marry?
(a) 1956.
(b) 1959.
(c) 1960.
(d) 1957.

8. 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) Confessional poetry.
(b) Truthful poetry.
(c) Realistic poetry.
(d) Sinful poetry.

9. What university did Janet Malcolm attend?
(a) University of Idaho.
(b) University of Montana.
(c) University of Illinois.
(d) University of Michigan.

10. When was the second version of The Journals of Sylvia Plath released?
(a) 1985.
(b) 1983.
(c) 1987.
(d) 1982.

11. Janet Malcolm wrote to Olwyn Hughes in an effort to get an interview with whom in Part One: Chapter IV?
(a) Ted Hughes.
(b) Anne Stevenson.
(c) A. Alvarez.
(d) Assia Wevill.

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

13. When was Ronald Hayman born?
(a) 1929.
(b) 1934.
(c) 1935.
(d) 1932.

14. The long and confused letter Janet Malcolm received from Olwyn in response in Part One: Chapter IV only reiterated her disdain for ____________.
(a) The Sylvia Plath myth.
(b) Ted Hughes.
(c) The Hughes family.
(d) The postal service.

15. 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) Modernism.
(b) Civil rights.
(c) Post-modernism.
(d) Feminism.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Olwyn Hughes claim was something Sylvia's mother had never addressed and, in fact, enabled for years?

2. In her biography of Sylvia Plath, Stevenson writes of Plath as a sober and confused perfectionist whose suicide as well as the inspiration for her art remain ___________.

3. When was Anne Stevenson born?

4. When was A. Alvarez born?

5. When did the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church begin?

(see the answer keys)

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