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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 2.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Where does the "line of words" go at the end of Chapter 1?
(a) To Venus.
(b) Out past Jupiter.
(c) To the sun.
(d) To Houston, Texas.

2. When Dillard wrote in Roanoke, Virginia, what did she long for upon coming home after writing?
(a) A dreamless sleep.
(b) Cigarettes and coffee.
(c) Sleeping till noon.
(d) A tolerant giant to soothe her.

3. What animal, according to Dillard, is an analogy for characters in a writer's book "taking over"?
(a) The caterpillar.
(b) The lion.
(c) A shark.
(d) The sea star.

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

5. What does Dillard compare writing to in the first paragraph of the book?
(a) A dead end.
(b) A path to pick through.
(c) An ordeal to be probed.
(d) Laying out a line of words.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was knocking on the carrel window as Dillard worked in Roanoke?

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

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

4. When Dillard relays a story about a cabdriver singing a boring song, why did the driver sing it twice?

5. Jack London maintained that every writer needs a technique, experience, and what else?

(see the answer key)

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