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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 did Dillard write that 'People should not feed moralistic animals'?
(a) Her dog trotted around the room, head up in the air.
(b) Her cat stretched out and turned its back to her.
(c) Her dog looked at her and rolled its eyes.
(d) Her cat pushed its empty food bowl around.

2. Referring to a new idea, who said, 'Cheep--and all at once there it is'?
(a) Einstein.
(b) Stevens.
(c) Boehme.
(d) Wilder.

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

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

5. Who did Dillard's neighbor, Glenn, tell her about when she returned to the island in late June?
(a) Ferrar Burn.
(b) Ferrar Fenton.
(c) Nicholas Ferrar.
(d) Bill Ferrar.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Dillard say that she thinks happens to something, such as a writing idea, that you do not give up freely and abundantly?

2. What did Dillard notice most in the Washington cabin she wrote in?

3. What is the topic of an essay written by Dillard that she said she considers too obscure and too intellectual?

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

5. In Dillard's experience, what always wins over the vision being forgotten?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. 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?

9. Who was Paul Glenn?

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

(see the answer keys)

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