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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What book by A. Alvarez about suicide gained added resonance from his friendship with Plath?
(a) School of Donne.
(b) The Savage God.
(c) Where Did It All Go Right.
(d) Life after Marriage: Scenes from Divorce.

2. In what year had a literary critic declared that what stood out about Plath's works was that Plath's "not nice" quality was what set her apart from her contemporaries?
(a) 1968.
(b) 1963.
(c) 1971.
(d) 1955.

3. 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.

4. Where was Sylvia Plath born?
(a) Rhode Island.
(b) Maine.
(c) Vermont.
(d) Massachusetts.

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

6. Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath were separated by the fall of what year?
(a) 1962.
(b) 1959.
(c) 1960.
(d) 1964.

7. Anne Stevenson began a lecture describing how her and Sylvia's background as well as ideology were similar, and they had both married _________.
(a) Hastily.
(b) Englishmen.
(c) Adulterers.
(d) Incorrectly.

8. At what meeting had Anne Stevenson appeared to speak in Part Two: Chapter I?
(a) A town hall meeting.
(b) The 4H Club.
(c) The University Women's Club.
(d) The Girl Scouts.

9. When Anne Stevenson wrote her biography of Sylvia Plath, she found that she and Sylvia had gone through the same teen-aged angst and sexual frustrations of the American youth of what era?
(a) 1920's.
(b) 1950s.
(c) 1940's.
(d) 1930's.

10. To what friend of the Hughes was William Stanley Merwin married?
(a) Anne Stevenson.
(b) Sylvia Plath.
(c) Janet Malcolm.
(d) Dido Milroy.

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

12. When was A. Alvarez born?
(a) 1929.
(b) 1919.
(c) 1922.
(d) 1920.

13. What poet and playwright had previously lived at the residence where Sylvia Plath committed suicide?
(a) Leonard Cohen.
(b) Charles Bukowski.
(c) W. B. Yeats.
(d) Jack Kerouac.

14. In the first publication of The Journals of Sylvia Plath, Hughes commented how in the last several years of her life, Sylvia had found ______________.
(a) Her true voice as a poet.
(b) Happiness.
(c) Her lost journals.
(d) The perfect editor.

15. Sylvia had told her mother about the dismal kitchens and ____________ in England.
(a) Bathrooms.
(b) Flooring.
(c) Bedrooms.
(d) Roofing.

Short Answer Questions

1. When was Sylvia Plath born?

2. Where did Olwyn Hughes work until after Sylvia Plath's death?

3. A. Alvarez claimed that Sylvia Plath did not intend __________.

4. 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?

5. Where did Anne Stevenson move after college and marrying?

(see the answer keys)

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