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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. How does Vivian occupy herself while she waits for her physical exam?
(a) She speculates how her career path would have gone if she had not gotten cancer.
(b) She sings.
(c) She imagines she is giving a lecture.
(d) She recites a sonnet by John Donne.

2. Why is Vivian's treatment aggressive?
(a) It will keep the cancer from spreading.
(b) The tumor is very large.
(c) The tumor is spreading quickly.
(d) There are multiple tumors.

3. What is the struggle in the beginning of the sonnet, according to Ashford?
(a) Education.
(b) Death.
(c) Salvation.
(d) Love.

4. How does Vivian understand the poem, as explained by Ashford?
(a) Wit.
(b) Uncompromising.
(c) A puzzle.
(d) Truth.

5. How does Vivian get to the hospital at the beginning of Scene 8?
(a) She drives herself.
(b) She is driven by a colleague.
(c) She takes a taxi.
(d) She is taken in by an ambulance.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Vivian want to document to the audience before grand rounds?

2. How does Vivian think her colleagues would honor her memory?

3. What word does Kelekian use to refer to Vivian's cancer?

4. What trait do Vivian and Kelekian emphasize with their students?

5. How many nightgowns does Vivian say she wears all day?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Vivian think the process would be if she barfed her brains out?

2. Why does Vivian recite Donne's Holy Sonnet Six while she is waiting for Jason to examine her?

3. How does Vivian link what she learned in The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies and her career work in Donne?

4. When and how did Vivian discover words would be her life's work?

5. Why does Vivian explain her career while the technicians perform their tests?

6. Why is Vivian's diagnosis so concerning?

7. What does Vivian say the audience will see in “this dramatic structure?” What does Vivian want to document?

8. Why does Susie note that Vivian has not had many visitors? How does Vivian react?

9. Explain the cycle of Vivian's chemotherapy treatments as it relates to her overall feeling.

10. How does Vivian say she would have preferred her play be cast? Why can it not be?

(see the answer keys)

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