View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did Dillard once describe a moth on a ship as doing?
(a) Being stepped on by someone.
(b) Taking flight like a hummingbird.
(c) Losing altitude and drowning.
(d) Taking off before she could draw it.

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

3. What did a Dinka believe his own memories and daydreams to be?
(a) The meaning of life.
(b) Psychologically important.
(c) An extension of himself.
(d) External to himself.

4. Why did Dillard refer to a Zulu warrior and an Aztec maiden in Chapter 3?
(a) To compare writers to religious icons.
(b) To show what an author is like.
(c) As an analogy for readiness and preparation.
(d) As an idea for a writing theme.

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

6. With what type of aid did Dillard once work in order to keep a project organized?
(a) A paper sorter.
(b) Two computers going at once.
(c) A twenty-foot conference table.
(d) A fax machine.

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

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

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

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

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

12. What does the novel as a form usually represent, according to Dillard?
(a) Non-commericialism.
(b) Society.
(c) History.
(d) Poetry.

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

14. How did a well-known writer respond to a student in Chapter 5 who asked if he could be a writer?
(a) Do you like sentences?
(b) What do you know about the world?
(c) Do you have imagination?
(d) Have you taken my course?

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Where did Willa Cather write her prairie novels?

2. What passage was Dillard working on in the cabin on Puget Sound while a northeaster was blowing?

3. Why did Dillard write that 'People should not feed moralistic animals'?

4. What made the teakettle in the faculty lounge look so interesting in Chapter 3?

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 664 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample