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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 happened to the Smith-Corona typewriter in Chapter 4?
(a) It fell from the desk and broke.
(b) The rumbling damaged it beyond repair.
(c) The cord sent out sparks.
(d) It erupted with smoke and fire.

2. What, according to Dillard, is the first thing a writer does that is similar to what a painter does?
(a) Ignores the first faint marks on the canvas or page.
(b) Shapes a vision of the world.
(c) Brings the vision of the work to light.
(d) Shapes the vision of the work.

3. In working-class France, what did Dillard say that experienced workers tell an apprentice who gets hurt or tired?
(a) He does not know his limits.
(b) It is the trade entering his body.
(c) He is adapting himself.
(d) He fits himself to the job.

4. What did Dillard notice most in the Washington cabin she wrote in?
(a) The beauty.
(b) The cold.
(c) The view.
(d) The quiet.

5. What damage did the Smith-Corona typewriter do in Chapter 4?
(a) The curtains were set on fire.
(b) The rug got damaged.
(c) The writer's shirt was burned.
(d) The table the typewriter was on collapsed.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Who did Dillard's neighbor, Glenn, tell her about when she returned to the island in late June?

3. What did Dillard learn about herself while talking with the sheriff in Chapter 3?

4. At the island on Haro Strait, why would a man overboard die within ten minutes?

5. According to Glenn's story, what was Ferrar after in the water?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. 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?

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

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

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

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

8. What did the children who visited Dillard in Chapter 3 surprise her with?

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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