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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What happens to all writers?
(a) They grow dated.
(b) They become more famous with age.
(c) They grow to be better writers.
(d) Their stories grow more optimistic with each passing year.

2. Kurt Vonnegut Sr. is respected and loved as a founder of what museum?
(a) The Indianapolis 500 Museum.
(b) The Indianapolis Museum of Art.
(c) The Children's Museum.
(d) The Museum of Natural History.

3. What is the title of the book Jane writes about raising their kids on Cape Cod?
(a) Angels Without Wings.
(b) My Children, My Angels.
(c) On a Wing and a Prayer.
(d) Angels in Heaven.

4. What limits Algren's popularity?
(a) His distinct odor.
(b) His foul personality.
(c) His lack of connections.
(d) A penchant for truth.

5. Why is Algren bitter over his masterpiece, The Man with the Golden Arm?
(a) He does not like the how it ends.
(b) He does not think it is a masterpiece.
(c) He fears he will not be able to create another masterpiece.
(d) He receives very little for his masterpiece.

6. What is the name of the infant that the Vonneguts adopt?
(a) Lily.
(b) Leslie.
(c) Rachel.
(d) Rose.

7. Vonnegut laments that people can say atrocious things in public, but he is charged with encouraging what?
(a) violent protests.
(b) vulgar language.
(c) violence against ethnic minorities.
(d) violence against women and kiddy porn.

8. What does Vonnegut tell 1990 graduates of the University of Rhode Island?
(a) College is a waste of time, and they should make the world their university.
(b) They should enjoy this day, because real life begins tomorrow.
(c) Colleges should spread the important stuff over four years, instead of saving it all up for the very end.
(d) He wishes he could have been a graduate of the University of Rhode Island.

9. What does Vonnegut's late grandfather, Bernard, whom Vonnegut never meets, scorn?
(a) His birthplace, Indianapolis.
(b) His grandchildren.
(c) His son, Kurt Vonnegut Sr..
(d) His high school, Warren Central.

10. What does Vonnegut believe it is time to hear?
(a) Cries of love for all people.
(b) The cry for freedom.
(c) The ringing of the Liberty Bell.
(d) Liberty's lusty birth cries.

11. What does the author use as a recurrent symbol of U.S. political stupidities?
(a) President George Bush's call for a constitutional amendment outlawing flag burning.
(b) President George Bush's support of the NRA.
(c) The NRA militia commercials.
(d) The Bill of Rights' First Amendment.

12. Vonnegut is enthusiastic about Pollock's work, but what does he feel is missing from Pollock's paintings?
(a) A horizon.
(b) Organization.
(c) Human figures.
(d) Color.

13. To what does Vonnegut compare censorship's always being on the rise, around, and undiagnosed?
(a) Diabetes.
(b) Alzheimer's.
(c) AIDS.
(d) Heart disease.

14. What mental illness does the author's son suffer and recover from?
(a) Bipolar disorder.
(b) Schizophrenia.
(c) Anxiety.
(d) Depression.

15. Dr. Nancy Andreassen finds that people in what profession tend to be depressive or come from depressive families more often than in the general public?
(a) Medicine.
(b) Law.
(c) Painting.
(d) Writing.

Short Answer Questions

1. The Attorney General's Commission compares anything that sounds like the Sermon on the Mount to what?

2. Whose art does Father celebrate, as if it is a Pieta or Sistine chapel ceiling?

3. What do Jane and Vonnegut have in common?

4. What does Vonnegut say happens to American literary history, that "generations" of writers are separated by less than twenty years?

5. The Reverend wants which amendment to conform to his version of Christianity?

(see the answer keys)

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