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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. How long did it take William Faulkner to write "As I Lay Dying"?
(a) Six weeks.
(b) Six months.
(c) Ten years.
(d) Six years.

2. When Dillard relays a story about a cabdriver singing a boring song, why did the driver sing it twice?
(a) It had taken him a long time to get it right.
(b) It was a throw-away song.
(c) He wanted to bore the author.
(d) He was stalling for time.

3. When Dillard wrote in Roanoke, Virginia, what did she long for upon coming home after writing?
(a) A tolerant giant to soothe her.
(b) Cigarettes and coffee.
(c) Sleeping till noon.
(d) A dreamless sleep.

4. Who claimed to have written for twenty hours a day?
(a) Jack London.
(b) James Patterson.
(c) Wallace Stevens.
(d) Edgar Allen Poe.

5. Dillard believes that some writers weaken their resolve to discard parts of their work. Why?
(a) It is too much work.
(b) They believe every word they write is too important to discard.
(c) People have told them it is too good to discard.
(d) The words have come to have a necessary quality.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Dillard say shocked her as she remembered a formal lunch with a publishing colleague in Chapter 2?

2. What do television and films do to the body's senses, according to Dillard?

3. How many hours of sleep would Jack London usually get?

4. When a writer is stuck while writing a book, what does Dillard think he should do?

5. Whose wife posed for the Liberty dime?

Short Essay Questions

1. What analogy does Dillard use to explain how a book leads its writer on?

2. Describe the inside of Dillard's study on Cape Cod.

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

4. When the cab driver in New York sang songs with Dillard, why did he sing one dull song twice?

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

6. When Dillard glanced in the daylight at one of the stacks of books she regularly touched to feel her way at night, what surprised her?

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

8. Why did the inchworm in Dillard's story keep asking itself, "What! No further"?

9. Why does Dillard believe that putting together a book is interesting and exhilarating?

10. Dillard describes the scenes from her desk at the library in Virginia. Why does she say these scenes are detrimental to her work?

(see the answer keys)

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