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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why are Vonnegut's jokes not funny?
(a) He never attempts to tell jokes.
(b) He lacks a way to let readers off the hook.
(c) His jokes are immature and childish.
(d) He is skilled at letting readers off the hook.

2. Why are ex-hippies ashamed to belong to their social class?
(a) They wish they had participated in the Vietnam War.
(b) They despise Vietnam vets.
(c) The social class is so pandered to by the administration that its young do not have to go and do not want to go to war.
(d) They are embarrassed by their actions in the 1960s.

3. What does Vonnegut never think he owes to himself or the world?
(a) To forgive his mother.
(b) To become a litigator.
(c) To return to writing.
(d) To write a book about Jackson Pollock.

4. When the definition for Schizophrenia has been tightened, how is Mark now classified?
(a) Suicidal.
(b) Schizophrenic.
(c) Mentally retarded.
(d) Manic-depressive.

5. What does Vonnegut require of translators?
(a) They must ask him many questions about his work.
(b) They must do as he says.
(c) They must speak Italian, English, as well as another language.
(d) They must be more gifted writers than he and speak at least two languages, including his.

6. What tough question does Vonnegut's book "Player Piano" ask?
(a) What will happen to our planet in the future?
(b) What are people for?
(c) When will there be world peace?
(d) Why do people hurt one another?

7. What do many of Vonnegut's books, including this one, not include?
(a) Fantasy creatures.
(b) Social groups.
(c) Mammals.
(d) Individual human beings.

8. Why does Rait believe she can say whatever she pleases in English?
(a) She is a non-native speaker.
(b) She is very opinionated.
(c) She likes speaking in English.
(d) She believes that what she has to say is important.

9. Jane, Vonnegut's first wife, is born a Quaker and dies as a member of what denomination?
(a) Lutheran.
(b) Roman Catholic.
(c) Methodist.
(d) Episcopalian.

10. What does Vonnegut believe may unite mankind, by creating a generation that does not need to fight to be disillusioned by war?
(a) World peace.
(b) Socialism.
(c) Unitarianism.
(d) Television.

11. What other jobs has Vonnegut had?
(a) Muralist, cellist, and pro motocross rider.
(b) Stenographer, actor, sailor, and fisherman.
(c) Creates industrial advertising, sells cars, invents a boardgame, teaches private school.
(d) Legal analyst, computer technician, magician, and lawyer.

12. Vonnegut compares the young people he addresses to what character in Camelot?
(a) Spamalot.
(b) Sir Lancelot.
(c) Merlin.
(d) St. Genevieve.

13. Who is the author of THE KILIMANJARO DEVICE?
(a) Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
(b) Mark Vonnegut.
(c) Jane Austen.
(d) Ray Bradbury.

14. What pictures would Vonnegut hang if he were president of MIT?
(a) Bob Fosse's Sally Bowles.
(b) JK Rowling's Harry Potter.
(c) Pictures of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's "Frankenstein" monster.
(d) Robert Lewis Stevenson's Edward Hyde.

15. What does Vonnegut dream the world will be like in 1,000 years?
(a) There will be no humankind, because the various world leaders will lead their countries into massive wars.
(b) There will be no world in 1,000 years.
(c) German descendants will be running the planet.
(d) There will still be rich and poor, but all will be descendants of people who endure insults without committing suicide or murder.

Short Answer Questions

1. How do jokes work?

2. What will bust up all cultures and create a Third-World planet?

3. Those with addiction eventually hit rock bottom. Vonnegut believes Western Civilization hit rock bottom in World War I. Unlike those with addictions who admit that their addiction is ruining their lives, how does Western Civilization react to hitting rock bottom?

4. What is a scheme of self-defense that only maligned and oppressed minorities should be allowed to use?

5. From what event can ordinary humans not learn how much pain and humiliation to endure before calling an end to everything?

(see the answer keys)

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