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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 3.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Whose poetry did Dillard usually read aloud when on a break?
(a) Walt Whitman's.
(b) Ralph Waldo Emerson's.
(c) Conrad Aiken's.
(d) Frederick Buechner's.

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

3. Who does Dillard say that she believes to be one of the most prolific writers who has ever lived?
(a) Edgar Allen Poe.
(b) James Patterson.
(c) William Shakespeare.
(d) Thomas Mann.

4. Why did Dillard feel that an author must visit her work every day?
(a) To feel sympathy for it.
(b) To reassert mastery over it.
(c) To hope it will get better.
(d) To be brave about it.

5. Oftentimes, what part of Dillard's work must be edited out?
(a) The typos and misspellings.
(b) The dialogue.
(c) The best-written part.
(d) The opening paragraph.

Short Answer Questions

1. When Dillard once wrote in a cinder-block cell, what scene did it overlook?

2. What do experienced writers urge young men and women to learn, according to Chapter 1?

3. How did Dillard come to understand the proper way to split wood?

4. Where did Dillard forget about a boiling teakettle and burn it?

5. Dillard refers to writing as changing "..from an expression of your notions to an epistemological tool." What does epistemological mean?

(see the answer key)

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