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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 1.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Dillard describe the process of writing a book?
(a) "It is a dreamlike task."
(b) "It is life at its most free."
(c) "It is boring and difficult."
(d) "It is something to avoid at all costs."

2. What does Dillard's "line of words" do with random pictures in the writer's mind?
(a) Writes them down, word for word.
(b) Dissects them out.
(c) Dreams of them.
(d) Dismisses them.

3. As explained by Dillard in Chapter 1, what must be done to a piece of writing after the first draft is finished?
(a) Delete just a few sentences.
(b) It must be mercilessly edited.
(c) You must strike it with a hammer.
(d) Nothing; it is done.

4. What did an inchworm search for in a panic in Chapter 1?
(a) A caterpillar.
(b) Its front legs.
(c) The next part of a blade of grass it was climbing.
(d) A way in which to lift its hind legs to its front legs.

5. Dillard refers to writing as changing "..from an expression of your notions to an epistemological tool." What does epistemological mean?
(a) A philosophy concerned with the nature and origin of knowledge.
(b) Greek knowledge.
(c) Surgical incision of the perineum during childbirth.
(d) Bacterial DNA that is extrachromosomal.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which insect is discussed in the book as part of an entomological experiment?

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

3. What part of the body does the "line of words" in Chapter 1 invade?

4. What happened in Bridgeport, Connecticut one morning in April, 1987?

5. Who once said, "Which is the work in which he hasn't surrendered, under dire difficulty, the best thing he meant to have kept"?

(see the answer key)

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