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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

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 kept the teakettle that Dillard used in a faculty lounge from whistling?

3. Which poem did Dillard often read aloud?

4. Why was Dillard's finger in pain at times as she wrote in the university office in Virginia?

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

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 was Glenn's story about Ferrar Burn?

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

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

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

6. 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?

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

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Describe Dillard's reasoning behind why it makes more sense to write one long book rather than many stories or essays. Use the comparison of book chapters to short stories in your explanation.

Essay Topic 2

Dillard asks why anyone would read books with advertising slogans and brand names in them.

Why does Dillard feel this is not a good thing to have in books?

Do you agree with her? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 3

Why did a young photographer in Chapter 1 submit the same landscape every year for judgment to the same person, only to be rejected every year? What was the photographer's ultimate goal in his recurring submission? What does having worked long and hard on a particular project lead a creator to believe?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,145 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample