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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) Out past Jupiter.
(b) To the sun.
(c) To Houston, Texas.
(d) To Venus.

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

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

4. When Dillard once wrote in a cinder-block cell, what scene did it overlook?
(a) Mountains.
(b) A strip mall.
(c) Cape Cod bay.
(d) A tar-and-gravel roof.

5. Jack London maintained that every writer needs a technique, experience, and what else?
(a) A pen.
(b) A philosophical position.
(c) A certain personality.
(d) An imagination.

6. 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 from the ground up, writers from left to right.
(d) Painters work with their hands, writers with their heads.

7. How did Washington writer, Charlie Butts, write fiction in order to gain momentum?
(a) He wrote while running mindless errands.
(b) He repeatedly left the house and wrote quickly upon return.
(c) He left every last written page in the middle of a sentence.
(d) He did not rise from his chair until writing 10 pages.

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

9. To what does Dillard compare writing a book?
(a) A reality television show.
(b) Climbing a long ladder.
(c) Learning to walk via crawling.
(d) Running a marathon.

10. Whose wife posed for the Liberty dime?
(a) Osip Mandelstam.
(b) Thomas Mann.
(c) Wilhelm Dinesen.
(d) Wallace Stevens.

11. When a writer is stuck while writing a book, what does Dillard think he should do?
(a) Nothing but think about it.
(b) Do crosswords to stimulate the brain.
(c) Write, no matter what.
(d) Read books that are similar.

12. Which author would walk through the hills for seven or eight hours on end without a hint of fatigue?
(a) Stevens.
(b) Nietzsche.
(c) Dante.
(d) Emerson.

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

14. What does Dillard say that she makes a pen drawing of in Chapter 2?
(a) The scenery outside her study carrel.
(b) Snapping turtles.
(c) People pulling into the parking lot.
(d) Cows on a hilltop.

15. What was seen outside the carrel window in Roanoke when Dillard peeked outside the blinds?
(a) The parking lot.
(b) Daylight.
(c) A May beetle.
(d) Fireworks.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Dillard claim as being a good life?

2. What did Dillard find herself doing in the rare book room nearly every day for about two weeks?

3. According to Dillard, what kind of life is a life of sensation?

4. How long did it take William Faulkner to write "As I Lay Dying"?

5. Who is the main character in a story told by Ernest Thompson Seton?

(see the answer keys)

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