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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What offer does the director make to Stephen when he calls him to his office?
(a) to become the student enforcer
(b) to become his assistant
(c) to join the Jesuits
(d) to skip a grade in school

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

3. What about his life in the past does Stephen now wonder about?
(a) why he refused the priesthood
(b) why his family always had such bad luck
(c) why he always thinks too much
(d) why he had been born

4. How could Stephen's thoughts after leaving the director's office be described in one word?
(a) empty
(b) astonished
(c) vain
(d) hostile

5. What does Stephen discover when he returns home from the director's office?
(a) His father is in the hospital.
(b) They are all excited about his becoming a priest.
(c) The family is being forced to move again.
(d) Uncle Charles has died.

6. As he goes outside, what serves to increase his piety?
(a) the sound of bells
(b) the smell of baking bread
(c) the songs of the birds
(d) the raw morning air

7. 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

8. What is the symbolism used to show Stephen's returning to nature?
(a) whistling a response to the song birds
(b) joining the boys to swim in the water
(c) picking up rocks for his collection
(d) removing his stockings and wading in the breakwater

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

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

11. Since the only sins Stephen has to confess these days are minor, what does his confessor want him to name?
(a) sins that he would never commit
(b) his fantasies about sinning
(c) his old sins
(d) sins that still tempt him

12. What distracting sight does Stephen come upon while he wades in the water?
(a) a porpoise leaping in the salty water
(b) a passing ship headed for new adventures
(c) a beautiful girl standing in the water gazing out to sea
(d) a long legged crane perched on one leg

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

14. How does Stephen now view his life?
(a) as a complete waste from which he learned nothing
(b) as a hopeless drifter without proper education
(c) as an escape from the old path and embarking on a new one
(d) as a drudge worker in a heartless world

15. What has Stephen been able to feel instead of love or hate?
(a) only anxiety and fear
(b) only brief anger and lust
(c) only joy and pain
(d) only hunger and thirst

Short Answer Questions

1. What strikes fear into the sinner, but is a blessed moment for the believer?

2. How does Stephen react to the announcement of the rector?

3. At the first of the retreat, what helps to awaken Stephen's soul slightly?

4. Going through all these strict devotions, how does Stephen come to feel about himself?

5. Whose innocence does Stephen remember trampling on?

(see the answer keys)

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