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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. According to Dillard, how do painters work as opposed to writers?
(a) Painters work with color, writers with black and white.
(b) Painters work on a blank canvas, writers on a computer.
(c) Painters work with their hands, writers with their heads.
(d) Painters work from the ground up, writers from left to right.

3. According to Dillard, what kind of life is a life of sensation?
(a) A good life.
(b) A life of spirit.
(c) A life of greed.
(d) A life spent reading.

4. Where does Dillard say she wound up putting her pen drawing in Chapter 2?
(a) Between the pages of her novel.
(b) On her kitchen fridge.
(c) Taped to the venetian blinds.
(d) On the wall of the library.

5. Which book does Dillard say she discovered that she touched every night in the darkened library to find her room?
(a) World's End.
(b) The World I Live In.
(c) It's the End of the World.
(d) The World Without Us.

6. Which insect is discussed in the book as part of an entomological experiment?
(a) A butterfly.
(b) Phataria.
(c) A worm.
(d) A fly.

7. Dillard believes that some writers weaken their resolve to discard parts of their work. Why?
(a) People have told them it is too good to discard.
(b) The words have come to have a necessary quality.
(c) It is too much work.
(d) They believe every word they write is too important to discard.

8. How long did it take William Faulkner to write "As I Lay Dying"?
(a) Six years.
(b) Six weeks.
(c) Ten years.
(d) Six months.

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

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

11. 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) Her lack of entertaining people.
(d) The fanaticism of her twenties.

12. What did Dillard do one night in the rare book room of the Virginia library?
(a) Moved a black chess piece.
(b) Left the lights on all night.
(c) Knocked over a chess board.
(d) Moved a white chess piece.

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

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

15. What do television and films do to the body's senses, according to Dillard?
(a) They make the writer sense the need to write.
(b) Numb them.
(c) Make connections.
(d) Stimulate them.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Dillard say many people prefer to the written word?

2. How many hours of sleep would Jack London usually get?

3. What does Dillard say that she feels a writer must do about feeling one's work in progress is either magnificent or abominable?

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

5. What ended the chess game for Dillard in Chapter 2?

(see the answer keys)

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