1. According to Viorst, in middle age we inspire far less ________ than we do ___________.
(a) Lust; respect.
(b) Hatred; love.
(c) Respect; pity.
(d) Admiration; annoyance.

2. "Reality testing" means what?
(a) That we go to college and experiment.
(b) That we should just stay with our parents.
(c) That wishing doesn't make it so.
(d) That we try different roles in order to become an adult.

3. In our middle years, we may seek to reconnect with our _____________.
(a) Family roles.
(b) Elementary school friends.
(c) Cousins.
(d) Roots.

4. By consolidating our own "inner law enforcer or superego," we can resolve what in a healthy way?
(a) Our fear of authority.
(b) Our fear of abandoment.
(c) The Oedipus complex.
(d) The inadequate feelings of childhood.

5. Viorst details which famous baby doctor in Chapter 18?
(a) B. F. Skinner.
(b) Benjamin Spock.
(c) T. Berry Brazelton.
(d) Bill Sears.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does this line from a poem by Longfellow tell us about old age? "Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, Completed Faust when eighty years were past."

2. According to Chapter 7, girls have to give up more of what than boys in outgrowing their Oedipus complex?

3. Viorst references The World According to Garp and a mishearing of this term by a child.

4. What was the name of the married woman with four children, mentioned in Chapter 12, who formed a non-sexual friendship with another man?

5. "Our conscience is our _____________ installed in our mind."

(see the answer key)

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