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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. What detail does the story give about the shape of the tape on the windows?
(a) It is shaped like the letter "x."
(b) It is shaped like asterisks.
(c) It is shaped like crosses.
(d) It is shaped like diamonds.

2. What does the woman suspect that the man believes about his blasphemy?
(a) It is the reason she is angry at him.
(b) It caused the hurricane.
(c) It caused his illness.
(d) It is no one's business but his own.

3. What technique is used in the sentence: "The story is flat and even, just as the earth seems flat and even when a hurricane is advancing over it" (19)?
(a) Allusion.
(b) Simile.
(c) Personification.
(d) Allegory.

4. What can be inferred about the woman from the description of the women who try to get her to sit down at their church?
(a) She is not Black.
(b) She is White.
(c) She is not a Christian.
(d) She is Jewish.

5. What does the narrator say "usually promises to be interesting" (19)?
(a) A flood.
(b) A religious crisis.
(c) A death.
(d) A hurricane.

Short Answer Questions

1. What technique is used in the phrase "the stink of burning hair, fur, and horn" (19)?

2. For what reason, besides that "there may not be enough to tell about him," does the woman think that the man might not be the right "center" for her story (20)?

3. What does the woman think might be preventing her from committing to a center for her story?

4. Who is the author of "The Center of the Story"?

5. After completing her first draft of the story, what does the woman realize about it?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the woman's story about, and what is its major flaw?

2. What does the woman realize about her religious belief and the calm she feels?

3. Who are the people in the story that the writer is working on?

4. What did the woman originally begin her story with that she later decides to edit out?

5. Why does the man in the main character's story think that he is dying, and what does he do about it?

6. What paradox related to religion does the woman encounter in writing her story?

7. What comment does the story make about paring a story down to the essentials, and what does this have to do with Davis's own style?

8. In the end of "The Center of the Story," what does the woman realize about the emptiness at the center of her story?

9. Besides the timing of his phone call, what connects the man who thinks he is dying to the rest of the story the woman is writing?

10. Why does the woman watch the news so often, and what does she hear on the news that makes her feel exicted?

(see the answer keys)

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