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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. George Martin and his second wife, Judy Lockhart-Smith, attended the Beatles' fancy dress party for "Magical Mystery Tour" as what characters?

2. In Chapter 8, in George Martin's layer cake metaphor, what was the second layer in a four-track recording?

3. What three reasons does George Martin offer for some groups' desire not to work with a producer?

4. Members of what group invented an instrument called a Gizmo?

5. What does George Martin describe as a lifetime ambition in Chapter 12, unfulfilled when the book was written?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why, as described in Chapter 10, did George Martin become increasingly frustrated with EMI?

2. In what way was the construction of the first AIR studio innovative, as described in Chapter 14?

3. In Chapter 11, George Martin expresses his naivety regarding what activities of the Beatles?

4. Discuss two innovations predicted by George Martin in Chapter 15 that have since become reality.

5. What aspects of Dick Lester's direction does George Martin most admire, in the Beatles' film, "A Hard Day's Night"?

6. What album does George Martin consider to be the classic example of what can be achieved by a talented amateur with multi-track equipment?

7. Under what circumstances did the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, die?

8. What difficulties were presented by John Lennon's request that George Martin fuse together two unique versions of "Strawberry Fields Forever"?

9. For the film, "The Family Way", what sort of tune did George Martin ask Paul McCartney to write, and what strategy did he employ when Paul McCartney was slow to comply?

10. Describe the early founding of AIR, Associated Independent Recording.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does George Martin string together the various periods of his life, both professional and personal, and how does he interweave more technical discussions about music, architecture, filmmaking, and technology? Chapter by chapter, how does the book flow to create a cohesive autobiography?

Essay Topic 2

If George Martin can be said to be the protagonist of his own autobiographical story, who are the main antagonists? How did George Martin overcome obstacles set before him by those antagonists? Did he, or his character, learn and grow as the story progressed?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss George Martin's choices, regarding what to include and what to exclude from "All You Need Is Ears". For example, he includes a lengthy description, in Chapter 5, about how he destroyed EMI's relationship with a lesser-known artist, the conductor of The Scottish Festival of Male Voice Praise, and yet he makes no mention of the milestone event, the breakup of the Beatles.

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