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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did Dillard do when she was upstairs in a house and she felt a tremor under her feet in Chapter 4?
(a) She went downstairs in case the stairway collapsed.
(b) She collected her writing to keep it from being damaged.
(c) She called the emergency phone number.
(d) Nothing; she was used to earthquakes.

2. What did Dillard notice most in the Washington cabin she wrote in?
(a) The beauty.
(b) The quiet.
(c) The cold.
(d) The view.

3. Who did Dillard's neighbor, Glenn, tell her about when she returned to the island in late June?
(a) Ferrar Fenton.
(b) Bill Ferrar.
(c) Ferrar Burn.
(d) Nicholas Ferrar.

4. Who once said about writing, 'Know your own bone'?
(a) Truitt.
(b) Thoreau.
(c) Ibsen.
(d) Whitman.

5. As put by Dillard, what is the vision in a writer's or painter's work?
(a) A series of formal possibilities.
(b) The end result of the work.
(c) A piece of paper.
(d) The time and materials needed.

6. At the island on Haro Strait, why would a man overboard die within ten minutes?
(a) The channel made the water unswimmable.
(b) There were sharks.
(c) The whales were numerous.
(d) The water was very cold.

7. Dillard repeated the phrase, 'It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay' over and over like a song in Chapter 5. What poem is this line from?
(a) Valley Candle.
(b) The Well Dressed Man with a Beard.
(c) Poem Written at Morning.
(d) Sunday Morning.

8. When Dillard lacked sufficient energy for writing one morning in Chapter 3, what does she say she did to try and get it?
(a) Split some wood and smoked.
(b) Played the recorder.
(c) Ran a few miles and ate.
(d) Smoked and drank coffee.

9. What passage was Dillard working on in the cabin on Puget Sound while a northeaster was blowing?
(a) Rows of breaker waves resembling lines of writing.
(b) A marble statue of a Greek funerary.
(c) Christ's baptism in the bay in front of the house.
(d) A passage about a wild child.

10. What does Dillard say she believes poets and novelists like?
(a) Writers from the nineteenth century.
(b) The thought of themselves as writers.
(c) Poems and novels.
(d) Books about writing.

11. Thornton Wilder cited an unnamed writer of sonnets as saying only one line drops from where?
(a) A chicken.
(b) The ceiling.
(c) A hammer.
(d) A whisper in the ear.

12. How did a well-known writer respond to a student in Chapter 5 who asked if he could be a writer?
(a) Have you taken my course?
(b) Do you have imagination?
(c) What do you know about the world?
(d) Do you like sentences?

13. What written advice was found that Michelangelo had left for his apprentice?
(a) Paint, Antonio...and get it done now.
(b) Antonio, do as I have done.
(c) Draw, Antonio..and do not waste time.
(d) Use your ideas immediately, Antonio.

14. What damage did the Smith-Corona typewriter do in Chapter 4?
(a) The rug got damaged.
(b) The writer's shirt was burned.
(c) The table the typewriter was on collapsed.
(d) The curtains were set on fire.

15. What body of water did Dillard write near in Washington State?
(a) Strait of Georgia.
(b) Port of Vancouver.
(c) The Columbia River.
(d) Puget Sound.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where, in Washington State, did Dillard beg a cabin in which to write?

2. What is a writer compared to in Chapter 5?

3. Why did Dillard write that 'People should not feed moralistic animals'?

4. What did a Dinka believe his own memories and daydreams to be?

5. Who or what will teach someone to write, according to Dillard in Chapter 3?

(see the answer keys)

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