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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 does the twilight linger on the island on Haro Strait in June and July?
(a) Until seven p.m.
(b) Until nine at night.
(c) Until nearly midnight.
(d) Until dawn.

2. Dillard repeated the phrase, 'It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay' over and over like a song in Chapter 5. What poem is this line from?
(a) Valley Candle.
(b) Poem Written at Morning.
(c) The Well Dressed Man with a Beard.
(d) Sunday Morning.

3. How did Dillard come to understand the proper way to split wood?
(a) The neighbors told her.
(b) Via a dream.
(c) She watched an instructional video.
(d) By sheer luck.

4. Why did Dillard feel that an author must visit her work every day?
(a) To reassert mastery over it.
(b) To be brave about it.
(c) To feel sympathy for it.
(d) To hope it will get better.

5. What did Dillard study in Chapter 5?
(a) Paintboxes.
(b) The world.
(c) Literature.
(d) Exhilaration.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does society regard the writer, in Dillard's experience?

2. What does Dillard say that she thinks an artist supposes a live image to possess?

3. Who once said about writing, 'Know your own bone'?

4. Who did Dillard get a visit from in Chapter 3 that was eye-awakening for her?

5. What is a writer compared to in Chapter 5?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Why does Dillard say that she needed more materials than a pencil and paper in order to write something like a second draft for a thirty-page chapter?

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

4. In Chapter 5, how does Dillard compare a writer to a tennis player?

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

6. Why does Dillard say that the life of the mind of a writer is hard to be called "living"?

7. How does a work in progress turn on its author, according to Dillard?

8. Why did the island on Haro Strait haunt Dillard?

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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