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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 the printed word cannot compete with?
(a) Travel.
(b) People.
(c) The movies.
(d) Music.

2. What did an inchworm search for in a panic in Chapter 1?
(a) A caterpillar.
(b) Its front legs.
(c) A way in which to lift its hind legs to its front legs.
(d) The next part of a blade of grass it was climbing.

3. Under what circumstances did Rabbi Uri of Strelisk tell his family to dispose of his manuscripts?
(a) If he should die on his way to prayers.
(b) If writing became the death of him.
(c) If praying should kill him.
(d) If there was a risk of fire.

4. What did Wallace Stevens dictate to his secretary?
(a) Poetry.
(b) Editorial essays.
(c) Orders for lunch.
(d) Letters.

5. What book was Dillard working on in Roanoke, Virginia?
(a) Holy the Firm.
(b) Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
(c) An American Childhood.
(d) Living by Fiction.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is needed in the world more than another excellent manuscript, as far as Dillard is concerned?

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

3. What does Dillard say that she makes a pen drawing of in Chapter 2?

4. What was Dillard's study on Cape Cod?

5. What do experienced writers urge young men and women to learn, according to Chapter 1?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What, outside Dillard's library window, proved to cause the most distraction to her work?

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

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

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

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

7. In Chapter 1, what does Dillard say she thinks of as the usual reasons for an author getting stuck in a book?

8. Why did a ritual slaughterer bid goodbye to his wife and children every morning as if it were his last, in Chapter 1?

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

10. 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?

(see the answer keys)

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