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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. The comment that “The phrases ‘bitter’ and ‘cling to guns or religion’ were easily remembered, like a hook in a pop song” (145) offers an example of which of the following?

2. A bust of which of the following appears in the Cabinet Room of the White House?

3. The comment, “The presidency is like a new car. It starts depreciating the minute you drive it off the lot” (233) is an example of which of the following?

4. Which of the following people does Obama employ as his campaign’s national finance chair?

5. By how wide a margin does Obama lose his race against Bobby Rush?

Short Essay Questions

1. What reservations regarding running for President does Obama cite prior to beginning his campaign?

2. What does Obama label as the “big sort” in politics?

3. What does Obama identify as the “biggest mistake of the campaign” (143)?

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

5. What advice does Obama note he would offer to his collegiate self, could he go back and give it?

6. What is the primary rhetorical approach Obama uses to persuade Michelle to support his first attempt to win political office, and why is it the primary one?

7. What lesson does Obama report taking from the New Hampshire primary?

8. What reasons does Obama report for reading constituent letters?

9. To what events does Obama ascribe his perception as a U.S. Senator that he needed to do more in office, and faster?

10. How does Obama note his campaign staff defines the term “gaffe”?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

In the preface, Obama makes the following parenthetical remark: “I still like writing things out in longhand, finding that a computer gives even my roughest drafts too smooth a gloss and lends half-baked thoughts the mask of tidiness” (xiii). Does experience support the position? How so or not?

(see the answer keys)

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