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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Although he purposefully enters the brothel, how does he feel later?
(a) justified that he acted only out of nature
(b) wounded and shamed by much of what he perceives there
(c) disturbed that he cannot save the workers there
(d) numbed as though he had not gone in

2. What happens to Stephen's voice as he gets to his major sin?
(a) It is choked with emotion.
(b) It is low and murmuring.
(c) It becomes stronger.
(d) It fails him completely.

3. What keeps him from confessing his unworthiness and walking out of the chapel?
(a) the peacefulness of the chapel
(b) the Virgin Mary
(c) the priest is watching him
(d) the fear of God

4. What causes Stephen to recall how saints were tried again and again by sin?
(a) his ability to avoid temptation
(b) his lingering guilt for his past
(c) his interest in the lives of saints
(d) his many daily temptations

5. How does the priest react to Stephen's confession?
(a) with kind words and exhortation
(b) suspicious that the boy is exaggerating
(c) in shock and disgust
(d) refusing to give absolution

6. What is happening with Stephen during further hard times for the family?
(a) He is leaning toward joining the Jesuits.
(b) He is turning to a life of crime.
(c) He is losing his faith again.
(d) He is growing stronger in his faith.

7. After the confession, how does Stephen feel?
(a) glad that it is over but feeling the same
(b) afraid he will die before receiving holy communion
(c) happy to tell everyone his joy
(d) euphoric and filled with grace

8. How does Stephen begin to see his mother's faith?
(a) as being the cause of his father's failures
(b) as being disloyal toward him
(c) as being insincere and empty
(d) as fading away with the family trials

9. What does Stephen seem to hear now that he has changed the course of his life?
(a) noisey clanging of discord
(b) strains of elfin music filled with nature
(c) symphonies of opportunity
(d) raindrops falling on his head

10. What are some things Stephen remembers while contemplating his sins?
(a) peeping on girls in their bath
(b) the ribald poetery he wrote
(c) the filthy pictures he had drawn
(d) his sordid dreams and the foul letters he had written

11. How does Stephen come to view all of creation?
(a) as an accident of nature
(b) as a reminder of the lust in the world
(c) as the evolution of the species
(d) as an expression of God's love and power

12. Alone in his room, what does Stephen see when he closes his eyes?
(a) his sins replayed before him
(b) the girl Emma begging bread
(c) faces of saints
(d) the tears of the virgin Mary

13. What sensation does Stephen get while thinking back to Clongowes?
(a) He feels like the retreat is like falling into a ditch.
(b) He feels his soul become childlike.
(c) He feels ashamed of his father's financial difficulties.
(d) He feels all grown up.

14. What does the rector say the retreat signifies?
(a) a time off for good behavior
(b) a dedication to better study
(c) a chance to enter the seminary
(d) a withdrawal from the worldly cares

15. How does Stephen feel about the Virgin?
(a) She has chosen him to be her white knight.
(b) She can order her Son to do her will.
(c) As a mother, she overlooks the sins of her children.
(d) Mary does not humiliate the sinner who approaches her.

Short Answer Questions

1. Whose innocence does Stephen remember trampling on?

2. Where does Stephen's walking around in smaller and smaller circles eventually lead him?

3. How does Stephen now view his life?

4. What is detailed by cramped conditions, the darkness, the stench, the fires, the enraged howls and suffering screams of the damned, and the mocking of devils?

5. What begins to needle him and cause minor disruptions to his devotions?

(see the answer keys)

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