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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Dillard say that she found so appealing about a Danish aristocrat?
(a) His title.
(b) His daily schedule.
(c) His ability to relax.
(d) His life of leisure.

2. What does Dillard have to say about appealing workplaces for writing?
(a) They are to be avoided.
(b) Avoid drabness at all costs.
(c) The lovelier the scenery, the better.
(d) Bright yellow paint on the walls is best.

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

4. Oftentimes, what part of Dillard's work must be edited out?
(a) The opening paragraph.
(b) The best-written part.
(c) The dialogue.
(d) The typos and misspellings.

5. What do television and films do to the body's senses, according to Dillard?
(a) Stimulate them.
(b) They make the writer sense the need to write.
(c) Numb them.
(d) Make connections.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who is the main character in a story told by Ernest Thompson Seton?

2. How long does it generally take to write a book?

3. What happened in Bridgeport, Connecticut one morning in April, 1987?

4. What is the title of the Jack London book mentioned in Chapter 2?

5. Which book does Dillard say she discovered that she touched every night in the darkened library to find her room?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Dillard believe a writer often wants to refrain from throwing away the beginnings of the work she has created?

2. Why does Dillard say that she made a pen drawing of the scenes outside her library window?

3. When Dillard heard a June bug bumping up against the carrel window one night, what did the noise bring her to realize?

4. What is the most appealing schedule that Dillard says she knows?

5. What is the meaning of Thoreau's note that "The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or perchance a palace or temple on the earth, and at length the middle-aged man concludes to build a wood-shed with them"?

6. How does Dillard describe the line of words as being one's own heart?

7. Dillard vows to remember her difficulties writing in Roanoke, Virginia. Why is this ironic?

8. How does Dillard say that she defines the meaning of schedules, in Chapter 2?

9. When Dillard was working in the library at night, how did she find her way around in the dark?

10. Why is 'the path' of the line of writing, as described in Chapter 1 by Dillard, not to be considered the actual work?

(see the answer keys)

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