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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Styron say about people who survive a depressive episode?
(a) They come out with few permanent wounds.
(b) They are permanently damaged mentally.
(c) They are very strong people but succumb to a weakness.
(d) They are weak people who just happened to endure an episode.

2. From Job to Styron's day, he says artists and writers have been trying to do what?
(a) Build better relationships to overcome depression.
(b) Cheer up people who suffer from depression with their works.
(c) Explain the blackness of the fantasia of depression.
(d) Overcome the effects of depression that overcome artists.

3. How long does Styron have to stay in the hospital?
(a) Almost a year.
(b) Seven weeks.
(c) A month.
(d) Two weeks.

4. What term does Styron give to the loss of a parent or something early in life?
(a) Dark depression.
(b) Lifelong loss.
(c) Incomplete mourning.
(d) Insurmountable loss.

5. What does Styron's psychiatrist recommend to him about the hospital?
(a) To avoid the hospital at all costs.
(b) To go to the hospital for treatment.
(c) To go to a hospital in Paris so no one would know.
(d) To plan on staying for a year in the hospital.

6. Styron compares the theories about depression to the theories about what?
(a) The world is square/round debate.
(b) Evolution.
(c) Dinosaurs and Black Holes.
(d) Creation.

7. What happens to Styron's speech as he becomes more depressed?
(a) It becomes very rapid.
(b) He is unable to make certain sounds.
(c) Nothing happens to his speech.
(d) It slows to a halting rate.

8. Why does Styron consult with Dr. Gold, who he didn't feel could really help him?
(a) To satisfy his wife, who demanded he get treatment.
(b) To look good to the press.
(c) To receive the medicines he thought would help him.
(d) To get help for his friend, Camus.

9. How does Styron explain his approach to his self-destruction?
(a) He was going to choose a painless method.
(b) It was fully deserved.
(c) Melodramatic, one part of him the actor, and one part of him the audience.
(d) He knew he would hurt his wife, but had to do it.

10. What reason does Styron give for taking the prescribed medicines without question?
(a) He was told the medicine was harmless.
(b) He was too depressed to notice.
(c) He didn't know anything about the medicine.
(d) His doctor threathened the hospital if he didn't take it.

11. How does his diary represent his mental state?
(a) It corresponded to his moods as he wrote about them.
(b) It was a treatise on mental illness.
(c) It contained all his thoughts and feelings.
(d) That when he wanted to destroy it, he was close to his own death.

12. Why does Styron say he was betrayed the summer before he was hospitalized?
(a) He could not longer drink any alcohol at all.
(b) His friends deserted him.
(c) His doctor treated him with the wrong drug.
(d) His wife cheated on him.

13. What sort of people does Styron say is more prone to depression?
(a) Poor people.
(b) People with above average intelligence.
(c) Artistic people.
(d) People who have lost loved ones.

14. What does he think about art therapy?
(a) Too difficult hard.
(b) He would rather write than paint or draw.
(c) Skeptical because of the teacher's overly effusive praise, but eventually likes it.
(d) A waste of time.

15. What does Styron do to try and stop the hopeless feelings?
(a) Drink huge amounts of alcohol.
(b) Get his doctor to give him more medicine.
(c) Take long walks in the woods.
(d) Clung to familiar items like glasses and pens.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Styron's psychiatrist do that sends him into a deep depression?

2. What is Styron's reaction to being admitted to the hospital?

3. What does Styron believe he needs to get well that can be provided by the hospital?

4. Why does he throw his diary in the garbage instead of burning it?

5. What new approach does Styron's psychiatrist use?

(see the answer keys)

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