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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who is Glaucon?
(a) Not philosophically ambitious.
(b) One of the interlocutors.
(c) Socrates' son.
(d) The ideal solider.

2. Whose stories does Socrates think dangerous for the moral turpitude of his city's citizens?
(a) Heretical poetry by Shakespeare and Ben Johnson.
(b) Hesoid's Theogeny.
(c) Various works by Pindar.
(d) Aristotle's Poetics.

3. How does Socrates refute Polemarchus' definition of justice?
(a) Socrates reasons that it is impossible to determine what is fair in every situation.
(b) Socrates shows Polemarchus that every man is intrinsically free, regardless of the law.
(c) Socrates shows Polemarchus that stealing from the rich is unjust.
(d) Socrates asserts that doing evil, even to an evil man, makes the doer unjust.

4. What does Cephalus say to Socrates about old age?
(a) Most people think it is a curse, but one can enjoy freedom from youth's passions.
(b) Old age is the same as youth, it just depends on one's perspective.
(c) Wisdom is not worth death.
(d) Aging takes the life out of one's body.

5. In Socrates' ideal nation, literature which depicts the afterlife should depict it as___________.
(a) Mysterious.
(b) Negative.
(c) Positive.
(d) Foreboding.

Short Answer Questions

1. When Ion admits to Socrates that he can only recite one poet's work well, Socrates is puzzled by which of the following?

2. Who gives the first speech at the symposium?

3. According to Socrates, what happens when "one [is] mistaken in his judgment, and harms his friends, and helps his enemies, unknowingly"?

4. In Ion, Socrates concludes that Ion's ability to memorize poetry is which of the following?

5. When Cephalus tends to his sacrifice, who immediately takes his place in conversation with Socrates?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is an art, according to Socrates?

2. What does Diotima teach Socrates about love? How does this compare to Aristophanes' view?

3. How should soldiers, according to Socrates, be trained in the ideal republic?

4. Is The Republic only interested in individual justice?

5. What is Socrates' plan for the familial arrangement of the republic?

6. Why is Meno's definition of virtue unsatisfactory for Socrates?

7. How is the story of the Symposium framed? How does this relate to the cultural values of the Greeks?

8. What is Socrates' view on poets and soothsayers?

9. Does Thrasymachus like Socrates? Why or why not?

10. Does Socrates believe that his theoretical republic is a realistic political plan for a city?

(see the answer keys)

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