View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Where was Ferrar heading as he rowed against the current all night?
(a) Toward the San Juan Islands.
(b) Toward home.
(c) To the Haro Straits.
(d) To Fishery Point.

2. What passage was Dillard working on in the cabin on Puget Sound while a northeaster was blowing?
(a) Rows of breaker waves resembling lines of writing.
(b) A marble statue of a Greek funerary.
(c) A passage about a wild child.
(d) Christ's baptism in the bay in front of the house.

3. Which poem did Dillard often read aloud?
(a) The Tower.
(b) The Comet.
(c) Miracles.
(d) Sea Hollly.

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

5. What is the finished work's relationship to the vision of it, as viewed by Dillard?
(a) A final draft compared to a second draft.
(b) Something unchanging compared to something temporal.
(c) Well-known passages compared to the vision filled in.
(d) Something new compared to an antique.

6. What does Dillard say she believes poets and novelists like?
(a) The thought of themselves as writers.
(b) Books about writing.
(c) Writers from the nineteenth century.
(d) Poems and novels.

7. How does Dillard say that she defines the life of the writer in Chapter 3?
(a) As sensory.
(b) As literary.
(c) As colorless.
(d) As ludicrous.

8. What question did Dillard ask Glenn that he answered with the story of Ferrar?
(a) What the weather was like now.
(b) How his work was going.
(c) How far it was to Fishery Point.
(d) How the waters were.

9. Who once said that '..his firewood warmed him twice because he labored to cut his own'?
(a) Joyce.
(b) Thoreau.
(c) Whitman.
(d) James.

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

11. Why did Dillard momentarily feel she must quit writing in Chapter 3?
(a) She had nothing new to say.
(b) She was not good at it.
(c) She was too young to be living at a desk.
(d) She was addicted to cigarettes.

12. 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) Henry Thoreau.
(b) Albert Einstein.
(c) Wallace Stevens.
(d) Evelyn Underhill.

13. What did Frederick Buechner note about an author realizing that he is actually writing?
(a) The wood must be split and fired.
(b) It must go on once it is noticed.
(c) The writer should revise what was written.
(d) It calls for a break or celebration.

14. What does the impulse to save something good for a better place later signify, according to Dillard?
(a) It should be used later.
(b) It should be forgotten.
(c) It should be hoarded.
(d) It should be used now.

15. What does Dillard say that she believes a writer should aim for when writing?
(a) The scraps of wood.
(b) The chopping block.
(c) The axe.
(d) The wood.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did a Dinka believe his own memories and daydreams to be?

2. What was the result of Dillard's first attempts at splitting wood in Chapter 3?

3. How does society regard the writer, in Dillard's experience?

4. With what type of aid did Dillard once work in order to keep a project organized?

5. What does Dillard say that she thinks happens to something, such as a writing idea, that you do not give up freely and abundantly?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 608 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample