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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Dillard have to say about appealing workplaces for writing?
(a) Bright yellow paint on the walls is best.
(b) They are to be avoided.
(c) Avoid drabness at all costs.
(d) The lovelier the scenery, the better.

2. What sport did Dillard play with a boys' music camp?
(a) Soccer.
(b) Flag Football.
(c) Basketball.
(d) Softball.

3. What book was Dillard working on in Roanoke, Virginia?
(a) Living by Fiction.
(b) An American Childhood.
(c) Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
(d) Holy the Firm.

4. How did Dillard get into the library in Roanoke late at night?
(a) She climbed in through a window.
(b) She had a key.
(c) She hid in the women's room when the door was locked.
(d) The door was never locked.

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

6. Who claimed to have written for twenty hours a day?
(a) Jack London.
(b) Edgar Allen Poe.
(c) James Patterson.
(d) Wallace Stevens.

7. What question does Dillard say a writer must ask when considering random scenes that come to mind?
(a) How many scenes do I need to write?
(b) Is writing the same as film exposure?
(c) Should I write everything I think of?
(d) Do I want to expose these scenes to the light?

8. What does Dillard say many people prefer to the written word?
(a) TV.
(b) Recordings.
(c) Life.
(d) Film.

9. What is needed in the world more than another excellent manuscript, as far as Dillard is concerned?
(a) Pollen.
(b) Shoes.
(c) Honey.
(d) Bees.

10. Who did Dillard see standing at the chess table in the Roanoke library one night?
(a) Her phantom opponent.
(b) A baby in a diaper.
(c) The head librarian.
(d) The librarian's wife.

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

12. Finish this West African proverb from Chapter 2: "The beginning of wisdom is.."
(a) to get you a roof.
(b) to open a book.
(c) nature.
(d) listening to others.

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

14. What does Dillard claim as being a good life?
(a) A life lived in the senses.
(b) A life spent reading.
(c) Living as a Danish aristocrat.
(d) A day spent reading.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What did an inchworm search for in a panic in Chapter 1?

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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