View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who watched Dillard chop wood every morning in Washington?
(a) Holly and Frederick.
(b) Doe and Bob.
(c) Conrad and Brian.
(d) Small animals.

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

3. Where did Dillard forget about a boiling teakettle and burn it?
(a) A faculty lounge in a university.
(b) A cabin on Puget Sound.
(c) Her kitchen.
(d) An office in a college.

4. 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) Powerful.
(b) Rhythmical.
(c) Bright.
(d) Clunky.

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?
(a) It will be poorly written.
(b) It becomes better with age.
(c) It becomes lost to you.
(d) Someone else will get it.

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

7. Why did Dillard feel that an author must visit her work every day?
(a) To feel sympathy for it.
(b) To be brave about it.
(c) To reassert mastery over it.
(d) To hope it will get better.

8. 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 new compared to an antique.
(c) Something unchanging compared to something temporal.
(d) Well-known passages compared to the vision filled in.

9. What made the teakettle in the faculty lounge look so interesting in Chapter 3?
(a) It was in the shape of a cow.
(b) It was only large enough for 8 ounces of liquid.
(c) It had a clothespin jutting from its mouth.
(d) It had a picture of an Aztec on it.

10. What did Dillard use to crank herself up to write, in the log cabin in Chapter 3?
(a) A daily jog on the beach.
(b) The company of a cat and dog.
(c) Coffee in titrated doses.
(d) Photos of lions.

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

12. What body of water did Dillard write near in Washington State?
(a) Strait of Georgia.
(b) The Columbia River.
(c) Port of Vancouver.
(d) Puget Sound.

13. Who once said about writing, 'Know your own bone'?
(a) Whitman.
(b) Thoreau.
(c) Ibsen.
(d) Truitt.

14. How do Tibetan lamas keep from floating away, as described in Chapter 5?
(a) The meditate towards the destination.
(b) They walk very slowly.
(c) They wear chains.
(d) They swim with the current.

15. 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 fire on Stuart Island.
(b) The island beach dropping to the ocean floor suddenly.
(c) A man out in a rowboat at night.
(d) The sea in a winter storm.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Frederick Buechner note about an author realizing that he is actually writing?

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

3. What did Emily Dickinson love best in her writing?

4. 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'?

5. How long does the twilight linger on the island on Haro Strait in June and July?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 610 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample