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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What does Dillard say that the printed word cannot compete with?
(a) Music.
(b) Travel.
(c) People.
(d) The movies.

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

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

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

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

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

8. 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 Shakespeare.
(b) William Faulkner.
(c) Annie Dillard.
(d) Henry James.

9. What part of the body does the "line of words" in Chapter 1 invade?
(a) The soul.
(b) The heart.
(c) The brain.
(d) The lungs.

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

11. Who is the main character in a story told by Ernest Thompson Seton?
(a) A Native American woman.
(b) A fisherman.
(c) An Eskimo man.
(d) An Algonquin woman.

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

13. What ended the chess game for Dillard in Chapter 2?
(a) The opponent scrambled the board up completely.
(b) She finished writing her book.
(c) The baby went home.
(d) The custodian wished to stop playing.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. As explained by Dillard in Chapter 1, what must be done to a piece of writing after the first draft is finished?

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

3. What did Wallace Stevens dictate to his secretary?

4. Which author would only write poetry when he was '...rather out of health'?

5. Who does Dillard say that she believes to be one of the most prolific writers who has ever lived?

(see the answer keys)

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