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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 6.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In the narrator’s account of his culture, in Chapter 5, what was the problem early man had to solve?
(a) If he wanted to farm, he would have to kill off the hunter-gatherers
(b) If he stayed in one place, he would exhaust his food supply
(c) If he stayed in one place, he would be subject to wars
(d) If he traded with other cultures, he would lose his women

2. How does Ishmael characterize the notion that agriculture started in the Fertile Crescent?
(a) He says that it is subject to much debate
(b) He says that it has not been proved yet
(c) He says that it is an old hat
(d) He says that it is undisputed

3. What pressure does the narrator say he feels to act out his culture’s stories?
(a) He says that his parents have threatened to disown him if he does not follow in their footsteps
(b) He says that his neighbors exclude him if he expressed doubt about the value of the culture
(c) He says that if he doesn’t work, he won’t eat
(d) He says that he has to go to admit his belief in court

4. When does Ishmael say that human history began?
(a) 30 thousand years ago
(b) 3 thousand years ago
(c) 3 million years ago
(d) 300 thousand years ago

5. How does Ishmael define a story?
(a) A manifestation of the self seeking its center through experience
(b) A scenario interrelating man, the world and the gods
(c) A fiction that makes factual life possible
(d) A set of events aligned by a human experience of them

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Ishmael characterize man’s progress, once he discovered agriculture?

2. From whose perspective does Ishmael tell a rival creation story in Chapter 4?

3. In Chapter 3, how does Ishmael tell the narrator to think, when he tries to get him to see the myth of his culture?

4. Where does Ishmael say people were looking, when they came to the conclusion that man had undermined the universe’s plan, that he would rule nature?

5. How does the narrator characterize Ishmael’s expression when he gets the narrator to see that the idea that man should rule the earth is a myth?

(see the answer key)

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