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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through “The American Exception” .

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the title of the second essay in Zadie’s Smith’s collection, Intimations?
(a) The American Exception.
(b) Peonies.
(c) Intimations.
(d) Screengrabs.

2. In “The American Exception,” Smith says that the poorer countries Trump condemned did not have the foresight to be what?
(a) America.
(b) Europe.
(c) Sweden.
(d) Iceland.

3. What song does Smith reflect on how the lyrics would change if it were written for a man?
(a) Girls Just Want To Have Fun.
(b) (You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman.
(c) Just Like A Woman.
(d) I Am Woman.

4. Smith thinks that one reason Americans cannot fathom plagues is because they do not discriminate based on what?
(a) Zip code.
(b) Skin color.
(c) Gender.
(d) Wealth.

5. What does Smith say has “rarely been random” in America in her essay “The American Exception”?
(a) COVID-19 cases.
(b) Presidential nominations.
(c) Untimely death.
(d) COVID-19 recoveries.

Short Answer Questions

1. Smith says that despite America’s feelings of being untouchable, as the pandemic progressed, what did America appear to lead the world in?

2. What does Smith say she believed to be the “cage of her circumstance” (3) when she was younger?

3. What “obsession” (6) does Smith liken to her resistance to nature as a youth, an obsessions she says many writers share?

4. What does Smith say the link to long life in America is?

5. What is one of the ways in which Smith said she had tried to resist her own nature?

(see the answer key)

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