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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 7.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. When Dillard is watching symbols move on her monitor, which sends back numbers to her, what is it her job to do?
(a) Translate the numbers.
(b) Go for a drive.
(c) Stop immediately.
(d) Hold her breath.

2. What does Dillard say shocked her as she remembered a formal lunch with a publishing colleague in Chapter 2?
(a) The sexist terms the man used.
(b) Her lack of entertaining people.
(c) Her plants dying.
(d) The fanaticism of her twenties.

3. What happened in Bridgeport, Connecticut one morning in April, 1987?
(a) A writer was killed.
(b) A building collapsed.
(c) A Rabbi went to prayers.
(d) The author sustained a hairline fracture.

4. Where, in Washington State, did Dillard beg a cabin in which to write?
(a) Boundary Pass.
(b) On Snake River.
(c) On Haro Strait.
(d) On Herron Island.

5. Why does it make more sense to write one big book rather than a collection of stories or essays, in Dillard's opinion?
(a) There is more money to be made with a book.
(b) A cast of characters is easier to work with.
(c) It does not take as long to write one big book.
(d) You can fit all you possess into a long project.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Dillard, how do painters work as opposed to writers?

2. According to Dillard, what kind of life is a life of sensation?

3. What did Dillard do one night in the rare book room of the Virginia library?

4. Thornton Wilder cited an unnamed writer of sonnets as saying only one line drops from where?

5. In Dillard's experience, what activity pleases the senses more while you are doing it rather than after it is done?

(see the answer key)

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