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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. Smith says that despite America’s feelings of being untouchable, as the pandemic progressed, what did America appear to lead the world in?
(a) False positives.
(b) Deaths.
(c) Vaccines.
(d) Unity.

2. What is different about Jesus versus the actor speaking to him in the meme Smith saw during the pandemic?
(a) He is soaked in blood.
(b) He is kneeling.
(c) He is praying.
(d) He is on a cross.

3. Which philosopher does Smith cite when discussing the difference between the thinker and his real life?
(a) Kierkagaard.
(b) Nietzsche.
(c) Socrates.
(d) Plato.

4. In “Suffering Like Mel Gibson” Smith says that class can alter what?
(a) Your conception of reality.
(b) Your level of empathy.
(c) The number of cars you own.
(d) Your taste in clothes.

5. What does Smith say we had before the pandemic instead of death?
(a) The flu.
(b) Immortality.
(c) Casualties and victims.
(d) Universal healthcare.

Short Answer Questions

1. Nabokov said the inspiration for his novel came from an article about an ape that drew what?

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

3. In “The American Exception,” Smith says that the poorer countries Trump condemned did not have the foresight to be what?

4. What date was the speech Smith references at the start of “The American Exception”?

5. What image of “bored children” at home does Smith use in “The American Exception”?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the meme Smith references in “Suffering Like Mel Gibson.”

2. What does Smith say is the only relief people in lockdown have from one another?

3. Despite a plague's inability to discriminate, Smith says what about the structure of America’s hierarchy?

4. How does Smith describe the space typically occupied by artists?

5. What does Smith say she does not need “a Freudian” to tell her regarding herself and the two other women her age staring at the tulips in Jefferson Market Garden?

6. Why does Smith say it was hard for Americans to fathom a plague?

7. What does Smith compare the way in which she packs her free time to at the start of “Peonies’?

8. What are some of the “special words....lurking on the horizon” (4) for women her age that Smith describes in “Peonies”?

9. In what ways does Smith say she tried to resist what she felt was the cage of her gender when she was younger?

10. In “The American Exception” Smith says that Americans attack death as what?

(see the answer keys)

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