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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 unusual job did Cary Grant once have?

2. As which of the following does Sugar note she would represent herself?

3. In which liturgical season does Sugar join a prayer chain?

4. What does Sugar recommend to Drinker?

5. What social media does Sugar describe as among “heartbreak torture machines” (253)?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Sugar refer to the couches she and her husband had early in their marriage as dueling couches?

2. How does the dress Sugar’s mother buys for her daughter serves as an example of becoming?

3. What stressors does Spent report in her letter to Sugar?

4. What does Drinker note as his drinking pattern?

5. What questions does Sugar ask her memoir-writing students as they review student work?

6. Why does Sugar assert that cell phones counter the benefits of the wilderness?

7. How does Sugar describe jeans in the wake of a breakup?

8. After her salutation, what is the first thing Sugar replies to Awful Jealous Person (258)?

9. What is the worst *mental* abuse C reports her brother perpetrating on her?

10. What does Sugar note is most unsettling about the letter LTL writes?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

To what other writer’s work in your experience does Strayed’s seem most similar? What makes the writers similar? What differentiates them? Overall, which do you regard as doing better at the craft of writing, and why?

Essay Topic 2

Select one of the letters included in the book. Write your own response to it, following the overall format of Sugar’s responses to the letter-writers.

Essay Topic 3

Sugar repeatedly urges her letter-writers towards revealing their emotional selves to those in their lives. Overall, is it good advice? What suggests that it is or is not? How is the suggestion made?

(see the answer keys)

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