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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following does Obama report is the motto of his campaign staff in Iowa?

2. Which of the following songs does Obama have played following his formal acceptance of the Democratic presidential nomination?

3. How much of the vote in his primary election for the U.S. Senate does Obama report receiving?

4. At which of the following firms does Obama note working after marrying Michelle?

5. Obama’s comment that he “was from everywhere and nowhere at once, a combination of ill-fitting parts, like a platypus or some imaginary beast” (9) offers an example of which of the following?

Short Essay Questions

1. What shortcomings does Obama note in his collegiate self, based on his journaling?

2. What is the primary rhetorical approach Obama uses to persuade David Axelrod to support his attempt to win a U.S. Senate seat, and why is it the primary one?

3. What does Obama cite as his early problem in his campaign for president?

4. Why does Obama note unease at being “the new ‘in’ thing” (196)?

5. What comment is reported that Billy Shaheen makes about Obama?

6. What trust does Obama cite as integral to the modern social contract?

7. What reasons does Obama give that those who knew him as a teenager would have doubted he would seek political office?

8. How does Obama describe “politics in Springfield” (33) while he is a state senator?

9. Obama notes reprising the final section of Lincoln’s journey to Washington, DC, for his own inauguration—with one change. What is the change, and why was it made?

10. What is the first bill Obama signs into law, and what does it do?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The memoir makes note of many, many names, mostly people who work for Obama in his offices and on his campaigns. What purpose might bringing up so many people serve? Does the memoir fulfill that purpose? How or how not?

Essay Topic 2

Consider Obama’s musing:

"If only the decision on Afghanistan was a matter of resolve, I thought—just will and steel and fire. That had been true for Lincoln as he tried to save the Union, and for FDR after Pearl Harbor, with America and the world facing a mortal threat from expansionist powers. In such circumstances, you harnessed all you had to mount a total war. But in the here and now, the threats we faced—deadly but stateless terrorist networks; otherwise feeble rogue nations out to get weapons of mass destruction—were real but not existential, and so resolve without foresight was worse than useless. It led us to fight the wrong wars and careen down rabbit holes. It made us administrators of inhospitable terrain and bred more enemies than we killed. Because of our unmatched power, America had choices about what and when and how to fight. To claim otherwise, to insist that our safety and our standing in the world required us to do all that we could for as long as we could in every single instance, was an abdication of moral responsibility, the certainty it offered a comforting lie (439)."

Given the history of the United States, how correct an assertion is that of the passage? What evidence suggests that it is / not? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 3

Does the memoir as a whole support or deny the comment that “Running for president is supposed to be hard […] because being president is hard” (111)? How does it do so?

(see the answer keys)

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