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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. How did Assia Wevill die?
(a) She gassed herself.
(b) Cancer.
(c) A heart attack.
(d) She was hit by a car.

2. The author writes that biographers love letters since they are the fossils of ___________.
(a) Time.
(b) Emotions.
(c) Thought.
(d) Influence.

3. Sylvia Plath met Ted Hughes during her last year at which school?
(a) Dartmouth College.
(b) Yale University.
(c) Smith College.
(d) Brown University.

4. What was the name of Clarissa Roche's husband of whom Sylvia had less than kind things to say about?
(a) Paul.
(b) Mark.
(c) Jim.
(d) Frank.

5. Elizabeth Sigmund recounted an incident, soon after Sylvia's death, in which Ted did all except __________.
(a) Attack her.
(b) Blame Sylvia for all his problems.
(c) Show remorse.
(d) Take responsibility for Sylvia's death.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where did Malcolm interview Clarissa Roche in Part Two: Chapter IX?

2. How many children did Assia Wevill have with Ted Hughes?

3. What book did A. Alvarez write on the subject of divorce?

4. Sylvia resigned from teaching when she and Ted decided to make a living on __________.

5. According to a letter from Anne Stevenson in which she provided her take on Sylvia and her work, Sylvia had used poetry as a way to stage her own what?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why was the book The Journals of Sylvia Plath widely criticized?

2. What did Anne Stevenson reveal about Ted Hughes in her interview with Malcolm in Part Two: Chapter IV?

3. What kind of life did Anne Stevenson live? How was she similar to Sylvia Plath?

4. What outraged Ted Hughes in The Haunting of Sylvia Plath? What response did the author write?

5. How did the editor of The Journals of Sylvia Plath defend herself to criticism?

6. What public dispute did Alvarez and Ted Hughes have via letters?

7. When was The Haunting of Sylvia Plath written? What was its premise?

8. What did Malcolm write of the unread letter in Part Three: Chapter III?

9. How did Anne Stevenson equate her early days in England with Sylvia Plath's?

10. What letter did Plath write to Richard Sassoon in The Journals of Sylvia Plath? How did this relate to her later poetry?

(see the answer keys)

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