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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 metaphor does the author use to describe grief in the beginning of the fourth chapter?
(a) A hopeless child.
(b) A broken trolley.
(c) A house of cards.
(d) A long, winding valley.

2. How must God be approached?
(a) As One who shares in human suffering.
(b) As the road.
(c) As the means.
(d) As the goal.

3. If sorrow does not require a map, what does it require?
(a) The Bible.
(b) A history.
(c) A lecture.
(d) A final statement.

4. In the third chapter, what does the author decide is happening to his wife in the next life?
(a) She has become an angel.
(b) She is perfected in God's eyes.
(c) God continues to "temper her."
(d) Absolutely nothing.

5. With what same quality does the author think his love for H. shared?
(a) The author's intellect.
(b) The author's love for his children.
(c) The author's faith in God.
(d) The beauty of nature.

Short Answer Questions

1. What will happen every time the author builds a new house of cards?

2. In Chapter Four, what does the author suddenly feel walking through nature?

3. Against what were the author's records written?

4. What effect did the author's experience of H. have on him?

5. Why does the author ask God to treat H. tenderly?

Short Essay Questions

1. At the beginning of Chapter Three, when does Lewis acknowledge that he does not think about H.? What is life like when Lewis is not thinking about H.?

2. What is the difference between how Lewis felt at the beginning of the book and how he feels at the end of his reflections?

3. For Lewis, why is a good God as formidable as God, the Cosmic Sadist? Describe the differences between the two ideas.

4. What does Lewis want when it comes to reality vs. ideas about reality?

5. What question does Lewis ask to begin to reason his way through his pain? How does this question lead Lewis onto new ground?

6. How does the consolation that previously so wearied Lewis, "She is in God's hands", strike Lewis by the last chapter?

7. What human conditions does Lewis admit that he can never fully examine?

8. What feelings follow from Lewis's experiences when he is not thinking about H.? How is his feeling related to his grief?

9. What is an imperfect religious image with which Lewis is familiar? What is Lewis's reflection on this image?

10. In what way does Lewis's previous acceptance of death and mourning alter with H.'s death?

(see the answer keys)

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