Chapter 4
Test Bank
Multiple Choice
1. Ta-Nehisi Coates is known for ______.
a. winning the National Book Award for his memoir Between the World and Me
b. winning a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant”
c. writing an eleven-book series of Marvel’s Black Panther comic
d. all of the above
2. Which of the following was the earliest form of writing?
a. ideographs
b. pictographs
c. phonography
d. emojis
3. A writing system where abstract symbols stand for an object or idea is which of the following?
a. ideographs
b. pictographs
c. phonography
d. alphabets
4. A form of picture writing that has become popular through the use of touch screen devices in
the twenty-first century is known as ______.
a. ideographs
b. pictographs
c. phonography
d. emjois
5. Papyrus is which of the following?
a. an ancient form of writing using symbols to stand for ideas
b. an ancient form of writing of using symbols for sound
c. an early writing surface made from animal skin
d. an early writing surface made of reeds by the Egyptians
6. Parchment is which of the following?
a. an ancient form of writing using symbols to stand for ideas
b. an ancient form of writing of using symbols for sound
c. an early writing surface made from animal skin
d. an early writing surface made of reeds by the Egyptians
7. Printing was invented by which of the following?
a. the Egyptians in about 3,000 BC
b. the Chinese prior to 200 AD
c. the Koreans in 1200 AD
d. the Germans in the 1450s AD
8. The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary took approximately ______ years to
produce.
a. 10
b. 30
c. 70
d. 90
9. ______ was an important newspaper, magazine, and book publisher in colonial and
revolutionary America.
a. Ida M. Tarbell
b. Benjamin Franklin
c. Laurence A. Tisch
d. John Rawls
10. What invention directly led to the production of inexpensive dime novels?
a. Gutenberg’s typemold and printing press
b. the steam-powered rotary press
c. desktop publishing programs on the Macintosh computer
d. the Internet
11. Pearson, the world’s largest publisher, is best known for ______.
a. financial publications
b. the Harry Potter series
c. books for the education market
d. popular trade books
12. What author paved the way for contemporary fantasy literature?
a. Judy Blume
b. Stephen King
c. J. K. Rowling
d. J. R. R. Tolkien
13. J. R. R. Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit was first published after which of the following
occurred?
a. His publisher’s ten-year-old son said he liked it.
b. The first three chapters were distributed over the Internet.
c. Fifty-five publishers rejected it.
d. He cut it in length by 75,000 words.
14. According the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median income for writers and authors is
approximately ______.
a. $27,000 a year
b. $60,250 a year
c. $123,500 a year
d. $223,245 a year
15. The massive success of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels led the New York Times to do
which of the following?
a. open its own Harry Potter book store on the Internet
b. hire Rowling as the children’s editor for the New York Times Book Review
c. create a children’s best-seller list to keep the Potter books from dominating too many slots on
the regular best-seller list
d. review children’s fantasy novels on the third Sunday of every month
16. Giant superstore bookstores typically carry no more than ______ different titles.
a. 25,000
b. 50,000
c. 200,000
d. 400,000
17. In order for books to become popular, which of the following needed to occur?
a. a rapid form of printing
b. a literate public
c. an inexpensive source of paper
d. all of the above
18. Which of the following was the most important effect of the printing press and movable
type?
a. Ideas could spread rapidly beyond the communities where they originated.
b. Book publishing became profitable.
c. Spelling became standardized.
d. Books could be printed in German instead of Latin.
19. The primary function of a book publisher is which of the following?
a. to print books
b. to sell books in bookstores
c. to buy manuscripts from authors and turn them into books
d. to supply books to media reviewers
20. Which of the following is true about the majority of book authors?
a. They become wealthy.
b. They self-publish their books.
c. They fabricate major details about their lives.
d. They make a modest income from their books.
21. Books are distributed to bookstores by which of the following?
a. companies like Amazon.com
b. companies like the Ingram Book Group
c. Barnes & Noble
d. publishers sending the books directly to the bookstores
22. Janet Evanovich became a best-selling author by doing which of the following?
a. combining elements of the romance and mystery genres
b. selling her books using publish on demand technology through her Web site
c. taking on a male penname to sell her technological thrillers
d. signing a contract with a small university press
23. What do The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Beloved, The Scarlet Letter, and Of Mice and
Men have in common?
a. They all were written in the nineteenth century.
b. People have attempted to ban each of them.
c. They were all written by Kurt Vonnegut.
d. They each deal with the Holocaust.
24. One of the biggest features of Amazon.com as a bookseller is its ability to do which of the
following?
a. provide buyers with a social forum
b. recommend titles to buyers based on their previous purchases
c. accept all types of credit cards for payment
d. let customers look through books before buying them
25. Which of the following is a major advantage of electronic books?
a. The batteries will last a week a time.
b. The e-book device is relatively inexpensive.
c. The customer can carry ten or more books in the space of a single book.
d. The screens of e-books are easier to read than the pages of conventional books.
True/False
1. According to Marvel Comics author Ta-Nehisi Coates comics are just fun, adventure stories so
they don’t have to worry about diverse representation
2. The Oxford English Dictionary is routinely updated with new words such as sexting and
photobomb.
3. Prior to the development of Gutenberg’s printing press, there were no books published.
4. Scriptoria was an early typeface designed by Gutenberg.