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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Locke say was the second thing he wanted to study?
(a) How we know things.
(b) How the body registers knowledge.
(c) How the spirit reacts to knowledge.
(d) How we form beliefs.

2. What does Locke say perception creates?
(a) Language.
(b) Experiences.
(c) Ideas.
(d) Symbols.

3. What does Locke use as an example of abstraction?
(a) People.
(b) Chairs.
(c) History.
(d) Nature.

4. What did Locke study first?
(a) The mechanisms for measuring understanding.
(b) The origins of understanding.
(c) The weight of understanding.
(d) Differences in animal and human understanding.

5. How does Locke use garlic to illustrate his argument about the qualities of things?
(a) Garlic has many different stages of development.
(b) Garlic has cleaning properties in addition to nutritional uses.
(c) The taste is different if it is cooked.
(d) Different cultures use it for different things.

6. What happens to a particular idea when you practice abstraction?
(a) You subtract particulars.
(b) You see it in context.
(c) You see the opposite of the idea.
(d) You use it for religious purposes.

7. How does Locke use walnuts to illustrate the qualities of things?
(a) Walnuts are seeds for trees but food for animals.
(b) Walnuts look different than grown walnut trees.
(c) Walnuts are different at different stages of their development.
(d) Crushed walnuts will look different than whole walnuts.

8. How does Locke define complex ideas?
(a) Unresolved ideas out of which simple ideas come.
(b) The field of experience that inspires ideas.
(c) Combinations of simple ideas.
(d) Simple ideas that vary based on definitions.

9. Which is NOT a category of complex ideas, according to Locke?
(a) Styles.
(b) Substances.
(c) Relations.
(d) Modes.

10. What does Locke say about this standard for whether an idea is innate?
(a) He says it is a bird of a different color.
(b) He says that it is too wide a net.
(c) He says that it is a kettle of fish.
(d) He says that it is too high a hurdle to pass.

11. How does Locke describe experience?
(a) The consequence of knowledge.
(b) One of the ingredients of knowledge.
(c) The only foundation for knowledge.
(d) The least important component in knowledge.

12. What claim is Locke attacking in "Essay Concerning Human Understanding"?
(a) The claim to use pure reason in thinking.
(b) The claim that people know the world solely through the senses.
(c) The claim that people can introspect into understanding.
(d) The claim that people can merge compassion and reason.

13. How does Locke say ideas change over time?
(a) They ossify.
(b) They loosen up.
(c) They solidify.
(d) They degrade.

14. Abstraction is the ability to do what, according to Locke?
(a) Deduce a meaning from a category.
(b) Contradict an idea.
(c) See a concept in a sense experience.
(d) Turn an idea into a representative.

15. How does Locke handle the notion that knowledge begins in doubt?
(a) Locke says that doubt is the eternal enemy of knowledge.
(b) Locke says that doubt is for science, not philosophy.
(c) Locke says that understanding is divine and God is up to the job of inquiry.
(d) Locke says that certain things are known a priori.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which is NOT a method Locke describes for forming a complex idea?

2. What does Locke argue against in Chapter 2 of Book I?

3. How does Locke try to look at understanding?

4. What are modes, according to Locke?

5. What does Locke say must be learned along with ideas?

(see the answer keys)

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