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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. Why does it make more sense to write one big book rather than a collection of stories or essays, in Dillard's opinion?
(a) It does not take as long to write one big book.
(b) A cast of characters is easier to work with.
(c) You can fit all you possess into a long project.
(d) There is more money to be made with a book.

2. What passage was Dillard working on in the cabin on Puget Sound while a northeaster was blowing?
(a) Rows of breaker waves resembling lines of writing.
(b) A passage about a wild child.
(c) Christ's baptism in the bay in front of the house.
(d) A marble statue of a Greek funerary.

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

4. What was the result of Dillard's first attempts at splitting wood in Chapter 3?
(a) She cut herself with the axe.
(b) She missed the wood every time.
(c) She split fine logs.
(d) Tiny wedges got chopped off.

5. Where did Willa Cather write her prairie novels?
(a) Wisconsin.
(b) New York City.
(c) Miami.
(d) Kansas City.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why did Dillard feel that an author must visit her work every day?

2. How do Tibetan lamas keep from floating away, as described in Chapter 5?

3. Whose poetry did Dillard usually read aloud when on a break?

4. What happened to the Smith-Corona typewriter in Chapter 4?

5. What did Dillard study in Chapter 5?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Dillard say it makes more sense to write one big book than to write many stories or essays?

2. What was Glenn's story about Ferrar Burn?

3. How does Dillard compare a writer to a Seminole alligator wrestler?

4. Why does Dillard compare a writer writing a first draft to a Zulu warrior and an Aztec maiden?

5. Why was a moth trying to gain altitude and ultimately drowning, in Chapter 3?

6. The next-to-last sentence of Chapter 5 reads, 'Shall we go rowing again, we who believe we may indeed row off the edge and fall?' What does this refer to?

7. What did Dillard learn from the local ferryman?

8. How does Dillard say that she believes a writer must control his or her own energies in order to work?

9. What does Dillard mean in Chapter 5 by 'Probe and search each object in a piece of art'?

10. What was unfortunate about Dillard learning how to split wood correctly?

(see the answer keys)

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