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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What does Dillard describe as 'a net for catching days' in Chapter 2?
(a) Clocks.
(b) A schedule.
(c) Dreams.
(d) A journal.

3. In an analogy about a photographer, why did the photographer say he brought the same rejected photograph for judgment every year?
(a) "...I had to climb a mountain to get it."
(b) "...I never throw anything away."
(c) "...I only used that camera this one time."
(d) "...I just know it is my best shot."

4. What did Wallace Stevens dictate to his secretary?
(a) Editorial essays.
(b) Orders for lunch.
(c) Letters.
(d) Poetry.

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

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

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

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

9. 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.

10. What had Dillard forgotten all about as she worked on a Fourth-of-July night?
(a) The rest of the world.
(b) Eating dinner.
(c) Her books.
(d) Where she was in her writing.

11. Who once said, "Which is the work in which he hasn't surrendered, under dire difficulty, the best thing he meant to have kept"?
(a) William Faulkner.
(b) William Shakespeare.
(c) Henry James.
(d) Annie Dillard.

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

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

14. Dillard refers to writing as changing "..from an expression of your notions to an epistemological tool." What does epistemological mean?
(a) Bacterial DNA that is extrachromosomal.
(b) A philosophy concerned with the nature and origin of knowledge.
(c) Surgical incision of the perineum during childbirth.
(d) Greek knowledge.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Saint-Pol-Roux used to hang what sign on his door while he slept?

2. What does Dillard compare writing to in the first paragraph of the book?

3. In the life of a Danish aristocrat mentioned in Chapter 2, what did he do for most of the day?

4. To what does Dillard compare writing a book?

5. What was Dillard's study on Cape Cod?

(see the answer keys)

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