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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. While attending Hampshire College, Nic finds a sponsor who is a graduate student attending what college?

2. What final advice does David give to the addicted young woman for whom he buys lunch?

3. The family has to euthanize which of their dogs when he gets cancer?

4. What is the name for an object, situation, person, or feeling that creates overwhelming feeling of craving in an addict?

5. Studies have shown that what elements "change an addict's vital signs" (206)?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the main element of twelve-step recovery programs that Nic rejects?

2. What are the effects of David Sheff's medical emergency?

3. What distinction does Sheff make between useful guilt and guilt that is not useful?

4. What observation does Nic make about the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco?

5. Experts David consults say that addicts are skilled at exploiting what aspects of their parents?

6. What major medical emergency befalls David Sheff just before Nic's eighteenth birthday?

7. What does Sheff mean when he calls addiction an "equal-opportunity affliction" (177)?

8. What does David describe as his usual routine when Nic goes missing?

9. What are the definitions of priming and cuing, behaviors that can lead to relapse?

10. For what purpose does Sheff use the shark and the cormorant simile?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the connection Sheff draws between his own experiences as the father of an addict and the state of the opioid crisis plaguing twenty-first century America.

Essay Topic 2

How is the theme of family bonds portrayed in David Sheff's memoir Beautiful Boy? Examine Sheff's treatment of and messages regarding family bonds throughout the book.

Essay Topic 3

What is the David Sheff's message regarding the shift in worldview that needs to occur within United States government with regard to the addiction crisis?

(see the answer keys)

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