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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does a thesaurus help with brainstorming?
(a) The book provides brainstorming exercises.
(b) The book gives a list of unrelated words that weeds out the bad choices.
(c) There are pictures of mindmaps within each thesaurus.
(d) Looking up a word leads to a list of related words and gives overal word choices and concepts.

2. Why should interview questions be written before the interview?
(a) To avoid having to do it at the interview.
(b) To focus the interview around a certain theme.
(c) To keep the person being interviewed on track.
(d) To avoid drawing a blank in the middle of an interview.

3. What does Zissner think of gimmicky writing?
(a) It is worth a try to sell a book or article.
(b) It is the secret to selling a book.
(c) It never works.
(d) It is what gets writers through the door.

4. What do interviews do for the writer?
(a) They make the writer an expert in a given subject.
(b) Interviews humanize a topic, making a boring topic interesting.
(c) They make a writer feel stupid since he or she does not know that much about a subject.
(d) They make a writer less valid, since he or she needs to interview several people to create one article.

5. What is it that the bad writers mentioned above do that makes their writing terrible?
(a) They have bad grammar.
(b) They use too many euphemisms.
(c) They lie too much.
(d) They don't check their facts.

6. What is the mood or voice in a piece?
(a) The mood is the way the characters feel in a piece.
(b) The voice is the authority figure in a nonfiction piece.
(c) Mood or voice is the way the characters speak to one another.
(d) Mood or voice is the way a piece sounds to the reader in the imaginations inner ear.

7. What is a common problem writers have?
(a) Writing too much at first.
(b) Not writing at the same time every day.
(c) Writing too little.
(d) Starting at the true beginning.

8. Can a writer simply write the article with one interview?
(a) No, there should always be mulitple interviews.
(b) Yes, but it should be avoided because people forget things in the first interview.
(c) No, editing is too hard with just one interview.
(d) Yes, but it is better to have mulitple interviews and meld them together into one incident.

9. What ability do great authors have?
(a) The ability to ignore rules of grammar.
(b) The ability to write whenever they want.
(c) The ability to write perfectley grammatical pieces.
(d) The ability to get an inside on reading trends.

10. Why is the above a problem?
(a) Writers need to start at the end and work their way up.
(b) Usually the first two or three paragraphs of a piece can be cut.
(c) Writers end up editing too much.
(d) Writers don't put enough effort into their writing.

11. What does it convey when anyone says he can write a book if he wanted to?
(a) It shows that people are ignorant.
(b) It reveals the misconception that writing is easy.
(c) It reveals how easy it is to write a book.
(d) It shows that there are many talented people in the world.

12. What does the etymology of words mean?
(a) The history of words.
(b) The biology of words.
(c) The written scripts.
(d) The sound of words.

13. When can ornamental writing be used as an exception?
(a) When writing evaluations and resumes.
(b) When the author needs to abide by editors remarks.
(c) To follow solid writing.
(d) When the wrting needs extra fluff.

14. What happens when a product of writing is never read?
(a) It gets burned.
(b) It gets categorized under the bad books section.
(c) The author's reputation is harmed.
(d) It becomes worthless and a waste of good time.

15. What is another example of when a person HAS to read bad writing?
(a) Literature anthologies.
(b) Political Journals.
(c) Television captions.
(d) Instruction manuals.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does the doctor write?

2. What is a strange but effective way of proofreading to check for errors?

3. Why do journalists need to perfect uncluttered writing?

4. What is the purpose of colons?

5. What other group of people uses euphemisms or fad terms?

(see the answer keys)

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