View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What type of physical attacks did Proust have growing up?
(a) Panic.
(b) Ashthma.
(c) Schizophrenia.
(d) Paranoia.

2. Who was Proust's father's best selling book written for?
(a) Everyone.
(b) Teenage boys.
(c) Teenage girls.
(d) Mothers.

3. What is the finger placing ability, according to De Botton?
(a) The ability to understand the power of knowledge.
(b) The ability to point in any direction and find comfort in it.
(c) Being able to locate where you know something or someone.
(d) An increase in our own perceptive powers to discover something in us from our reading.

4. What does De Botton say to suggest it makes sense for De Botton to become an author?
(a) His family was full of writers.
(b) He was an English teacher.
(c) He loved books.
(d) He loved to read.

5. Who is Albertine?
(a) Proust's girlfriend.
(b) A character in Proust's book.
(c) Proust's mother.
(d) Proust's sister.

6. What was Proust's father in particularly concerned with?
(a) Public intellect.
(b) Public sanitation.
(c) Public broadcasting.
(d) Public learning.

7. What did Proust repress in his life?
(a) Companionship.
(b) Sexual desire.
(c) Intimate desire.
(d) Travels.

8. What was Proust considered to be in the 1920s?
(a) He was an aspiring author.
(b) A great author.
(c) He was an aspiring lawyer.
(d) A bonafide celebrity.

9. In response to the newspaper's poll, what did one person think would happen to people's inhibitions?
(a) Nothing was said about social inhibitions in this text.
(b) People would become less inhibited.
(c) All social inhibitions would utterly fall away.
(d) People would become more inhibited.

10. What is Pensees?
(a) A book about a man, Eric Pensees.
(b) A well known book of aphorisms.
(c) A well known book of recipes.
(d) A book about music.

11. What does Proust urge his readers to focus on?
(a) The future.
(b) The past.
(c) The present.
(d) History.

12. What did Proust die from?
(a) Cancer.
(b) A headache.
(c) A cold.
(d) A heart attack.

13. What does Proust believe a life examined is?
(a) A life worthless.
(b) A life well lived.
(c) A waste of time.
(d) Essential to everyone.

14. What does De Botton reason at the beginning of "How Proust Can Change Your Life ; Not a Novel"?
(a) There are plenty of things humans should be happy about.
(b) Love is the driving force between all people.
(c) Lust isthe driving force between all people.
(d) There are plenty of things humans should be unhappy about.

15. What does Proust desire his reader to not do?
(a) Love from experience.
(b) Let life pass them by too quickly.
(c) Love from words.
(d) Read for experience.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Proust's grandfather do?

2. Why would Proust sometimes examine a mundane train timetable?

3. Where does Proust suggest people would travel to in his response to the newspaper's poll?

4. In what year did Proust's father die?

5. What city's newspaper does De Botton analyze at the beginning of "How Proust Can Change Your Life ; Not a Novel"?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 482 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample