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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the topic of an essay written by Dillard that she said she considers too obscure and too intellectual?
(a) A moth.
(b) A mustang.
(c) Lions.
(d) Popcorn.

2. What does Dillard say that she thinks happens to something, such as a writing idea, that you do not give up freely and abundantly?
(a) Someone else will get it.
(b) It becomes better with age.
(c) It will be poorly written.
(d) It becomes lost to you.

3. Who wrote, 'He goes because he must, as Galahad went towards the Grail; knowing that for those who can live it, this alone is life'?
(a) Wallace Stevens.
(b) Albert Einstein.
(c) Evelyn Underhill.
(d) Henry Thoreau.

4. According to Glenn's story, what was Ferrar after in the water?
(a) A large fish.
(b) His wife, June.
(c) A yellow and blue rowboat.
(d) An Alaskan cedar log.

5. Whose poetry did Dillard usually read aloud when on a break?
(a) Conrad Aiken's.
(b) Walt Whitman's.
(c) Ralph Waldo Emerson's.
(d) Frederick Buechner's.

6. In Dillard's experience, what always wins over the vision being forgotten?
(a) The page.
(b) The work's intellectual structure.
(c) The set of mental relationships.
(d) An imaginary object.

7. What damage did the Smith-Corona typewriter do in Chapter 4?
(a) The table the typewriter was on collapsed.
(b) The curtains were set on fire.
(c) The writer's shirt was burned.
(d) The rug got damaged.

8. What did Dillard notice most in the Washington cabin she wrote in?
(a) The cold.
(b) The view.
(c) The beauty.
(d) The quiet.

9. What written advice was found that Michelangelo had left for his apprentice?
(a) Paint, Antonio...and get it done now.
(b) Use your ideas immediately, Antonio.
(c) Antonio, do as I have done.
(d) Draw, Antonio..and do not waste time.

10. Whose drawings and paintings did Dillard believe show his bewilderment and persistence?
(a) Rousseau.
(b) Picasso.
(c) Gaugan.
(d) Giacometti.

11. How did Dillard come to understand the proper way to split wood?
(a) By sheer luck.
(b) She watched an instructional video.
(c) Via a dream.
(d) The neighbors told her.

12. What did Dillard do when she was upstairs in a house and she felt a tremor under her feet in Chapter 4?
(a) She called the emergency phone number.
(b) She collected her writing to keep it from being damaged.
(c) She went downstairs in case the stairway collapsed.
(d) Nothing; she was used to earthquakes.

13. What is a writer compared to in Chapter 5?
(a) A tiger trainer.
(b) A moth flying into a flame.
(c) An alligator wrestler.
(d) A boxer.

14. What does Dillard say that she remembers seeing on the island at Haro Strait that made her weep on the shore in fear?
(a) A man out in a rowboat at night.
(b) The sea in a winter storm.
(c) A fire on Stuart Island.
(d) The island beach dropping to the ocean floor suddenly.

15. How did Dillard's sentence ('He led him into the water') from the book she was working on during a northeaster sound to her?
(a) Bright.
(b) Rhythmical.
(c) Powerful.
(d) Clunky.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Dillard say that she defines the life of the writer in Chapter 3?

2. What does the novel as a form usually represent, according to Dillard?

3. How did a well-known writer respond to a student in Chapter 5 who asked if he could be a writer?

4. Why did Dillard momentarily feel she must quit writing in Chapter 3?

5. What does Dillard say that she believes a writer should aim for when writing?

(see the answer keys)

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