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

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

3. Which poem did Dillard often read aloud?
(a) The Tower.
(b) The Comet.
(c) Miracles.
(d) Sea Hollly.

4. What did Dillard realize when she spoke to the local sheriff in Chapter 3?
(a) She loved writing.
(b) She was a good, sane person.
(c) She was like one who worked in a factory all day.
(d) She loved running a ferryboat.

5. What does the impulse to save something good for a better place later signify, according to Dillard?
(a) It should be hoarded.
(b) It should be forgotten.
(c) It should be used later.
(d) It should be used now.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Dillard do when she was upstairs in a house and she felt a tremor under her feet in Chapter 4?

2. What did a Dinka believe his own memories and daydreams to be?

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

4. Who wrote, 'He goes because he must, as Galahad went towards the Grail; knowing that for those who can live it, this alone is life'?

5. How long does the twilight linger on the island on Haro Strait in June and July?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What did writers such as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Ralph Ellison, and Eudora Welty have in common when learning to write, according to Dillard?

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

4. Why does Dillard advise writers not to hoard a good idea for a later place in a book being written or for another book?

5. What is ludicrous about the tea kettle in the faculty lounge of the university that Dillard wrote in?

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

7. When Dillard mentions that Thoreau's firewood warmed him twice because he labored to cut his own wood, why does she say that her wood froze her twice?

8. How does Dillard say that she learned the correct way to split wood on the chopping block?

9. What does Dillard mean in Chapter 5 when she writes, '...instead we watch television and miss the show'?

10. In Chapter 4, Dillard's typewriter erupted. What was the damage done?

(see the answer keys)

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