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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. From what event can ordinary humans not learn how much pain and humiliation to endure before calling an end to everything?
(a) Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
(b) Holocaust.
(c) Romans throwing the Christians to the lions.
(d) Sending the Tibetans into exhile.

2. The "Religious Revival" Vonnegut describes has two commandments. What are they?
(a) Be free and live in peace.
(b) Have no other god but me and other thy father and they mother.
(c) Stop thinking and obey.
(d) Divide and conquer.

3. What is an example of a book that Vonnegut believes moralizes?
(a) "Gulliver's Travels."
(b) "Blubber."
(c) "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing."
(d) "Lord of the Rings."

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

5. What features imperialism, the capture of other societies' lands, and treasure by arms?
(a) "The House of Mirth."
(b) "Le Petit Prince."
(c) "Hocus Pocus."
(d) "The Nation."

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

7. What is the definition of this society of which Dr. Robert Redfield speaks?
(a) It is an organization that teaches folk dances of various cultures.
(b) It is isolated geographically and members agree on what life is about and behave uniformly.
(c) It is an organization that encourages country living.
(d) It is a wide-spread belief in diversity and acceptance of others.

8. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, how many hours of television Failures of Christianity (murders) has one watched by graduation?
(a) 80 hours.
(b) 800 hours.
(c) 8,000 hours.
(d) 18,000 hours.

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

10. Where does Vonnegut meet his first wife?
(a) The symphony.
(b) An automobile race.
(c) Kindergarten.
(d) An art gallery.

11. What is a scheme of self-defense that only maligned and oppressed minorities should be allowed to use?
(a) Humor.
(b) Murder.
(c) Threats.
(d) Humiliation.

12. How does Vonnegut describe Reagan's and Bush's war experiences?
(a) Both had extensive experiences as members of the military.
(b) One experiences warfare in sanitized movies and the other as an aviator who never has to see his victims.
(c) Reagan was a PFC, as was Vonnegut, and Bush was an aviator and war hero.
(d) Neither of them had war experiences.

13. After reading William Styron's DARKNESS VISIBLE how does Vonnegut classify those that are suicidal?
(a) Those that leave notes and those that do not.
(b) They are either depressed or schizophrenic.
(c) Those that are severe and those that are minor.
(d) Those that blame it on brain wiring and chemistry or those that blame the Universe

14. Although people with acute mental disorder are less often written off as hopeless, why is there still a lack of certainty for patients and their families?
(a) Most patients still have to be institutionalized.
(b) Medications can have severe adverse effects.
(c) Psychological testing is dangerous.
(d) A dozen separate diseases are still lumped together as schizophrenia/manic depression.

15. How does Rita Rait become the winner of a limerick contest?
(a) She creates a competition and enters her own work.
(b) She wins the prize left by an eccentric British millionaire for the wittiest original limerick.
(c) She is married to the judge.
(d) She is the best limerick writer in Russia.

Short Answer Questions

1. Vonnegut's 1990 article in the New York Times observes that American humorists/satirists grow to be what past a certain age?

2. How many Americans are of German descent?

3. Why does Rait believe she can say whatever she pleases in English?

4. How does Vonnegut's trip to Mozambique make him feel?

5. To what does Vonnegut compare Bush's presidential campaign?

(see the answer keys)

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