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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 cut herself with the axe.
(b) Tiny wedges got chopped off.
(c) She missed the wood every time.
(d) She split fine logs.

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

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

4. Where did Dillard forget about a boiling teakettle and burn it?
(a) A faculty lounge in a university.
(b) Her kitchen.
(c) An office in a college.
(d) A cabin on Puget Sound.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Dillard use to crank herself up to write, in the log cabin in Chapter 3?

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

3. What, according to Dillard, is the first thing a writer does that is similar to what a painter does?

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

5. What did Dillard study in Chapter 5?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. 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?

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

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

6. What did Dillard learn from the local ferryman?

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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