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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How did the man to whom Rousseau was apprenticed treat Rousseau?
(a) Dispassionately.
(b) Gently.
(c) Violently.
(d) Affectionately.

2. What does Rousseau explicate regarding selfishness?
(a) How it emerges naturally.
(b) How it is sown by passions.
(c) How it is created by teachers.
(d) How it is falling into laziness.

3. What does Rousseau say Emile has been protected from in his education?
(a) Wanting what was beyond his grasp.
(b) Knowing evil.
(c) Being satisfied with what he has.
(d) Knowing his strength.

4. What change does a man experience at his second birth?
(a) Facial hair and a deeper voice.
(b) Sexual desire.
(c) The ability to reason.
(d) The ability to hold complex ideas.

5. What does the field of epistemology concern itself with?
(a) The study of correspondence.
(b) How we know what we know.
(c) The ideal forms behind the reality we experience.
(d) The realities behind the appearances we can see and measure.

6. In what sense does Rousseau say that children have strength?
(a) They are strong when they are compared with other children.
(b) They are strong because they can understand tough concepts.
(c) They are strong because they do not have self-doubts.
(d) They are strong because they have not been exposed to evil yet.

7. What is the consequence of too many slips in the child-rearing process?
(a) The child becomes a tyrant.
(b) The child becomes well adjusted.
(c) The child becomes a coward.
(d) The child becomes too obedient.

8. What proportion of children reached adulthood in Rousseau's time?
(a) Half.
(b) A quarter.
(c) All.
(d) Three quarters.

9. What does the author of the introduction suggest was the reason for the success of "Emile" as a book?
(a) It was controversial.
(b) There was a renewed interest in child-rearing theories.
(c) It brought child rearing up to date with modern philosophies.
(d) It codified long-held beliefs.

10. What does Rousseau recommend mothers should give up?
(a) Swaddling clothes.
(b) Books.
(c) Breastfeeding.
(d) Foot binding.

11. What observation does Rousseau make about the world in the beginning of Book 4 Chapter 1?
(a) How much sorrow there is in the world.
(b) How much money there is to be made.
(c) How much potential there is in man.
(d) How much knowledge there is to acquire.

12. What is most relevant in deciding how or whether to punish a child?
(a) The spiritual dangers of the issue.
(b) The circumstances and the context of the infraction.
(c) The rule or law at issue.
(d) The temperaments of the parent and the child.

13. What does Rousseau contrast with the active lifestyle?
(a) The lifestyle of moderation.
(b) The military lifestyle.
(c) The sedentary lifestyle.
(d) The meditative lifestyle.

14. Who begins to have an influence on the child after the mother has weaned the boy?
(a) The siblings.
(b) God.
(c) The nanny.
(d) The tutor.

15. How does Rousseau answer Emile's question about where babies come from?
(a) In polite euphemisms.
(b) He refuses to answer the question until Emile is older.
(c) In explicit detail.
(d) Without describing sexual activity but without being deceitful.

Short Answer Questions

1. What trade did Rousseau apprentice in?

2. How was Rousseau rewarded for writing "Emile"?

3. What does the adolescent's strength allow him to do?

4. What kind of opinions does Rousseau seem to hold, as he talks about book learning?

5. Which philosopher does Rousseau cite by name in the section on Submission?

(see the answer keys)

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