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

2. Who is the author of "The Center of the Story"?
(a) Lydia Davis.
(b) Maile Chapman.
(c) Doris Betts.
(d) Judith Frank.

3. What does the sick man want when he calls the main character?
(a) He wants her to come over and help him.
(b) He wants to apologize for the argument they recently had.
(c) He wants her advice about whether to go to the hospital.
(d) He wants to talk about death and the afterlife.

4. Why does the man in the story feel so ill?
(a) He has food poisoning.
(b) He has cancer.
(c) He is having a heart attack.
(d) He has the flu.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What specific Biblical story does the writer focus on?

2. What technique is used in the sentence: "Outside her apartment, the weather was changing: the wind rose, the branches swayed on the young trees, and the leaves fluttered" (19)?

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

4. What is it logical to infer about the church women who are wearing red?

5. What denomination is the last church that the woman visits?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. Explain what the "yellow pall" is and what things in Davis's story it is attached to.

4. What happens when the woman visits a Baptist church?

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

6. 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?

7. What arguments for and against including the newscasters in her story does the woman entertain?

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

9. What contradiction does Davis's first sentence introduce?

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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