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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. According to Seneca, where are the sharpest pains?
(a) In the smallest area of the body.
(b) In the eye/temple area because they are close to the brain.
(c) In the nose.
(d) In the heart.

2. In Letter LXXXIII, whose logic does Seneca question?
(a) Zeno's.
(b) Plato's.
(c) Aristotle's.
(d) Sappho's.

3. What does Scipio volunteer to do?
(a) Help teach Seneca.
(b) Go into exile.
(c) Kill Seneca.
(d) Care for the ailing Seneca.

4. According to Seneca, what often brings the most unusual tragedies?
(a) Superstition.
(b) Emotion.
(c) Fortune.
(d) Freedom.

5. What tends to either not last very long or to at least have periods of subsidence?
(a) Studies of other philosophies.
(b) Marriages.
(c) Severe pains.
(d) Grief.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Seneca say the gods give man the capacity for?

2. How much duty does Seneca say one must must fulfill before his life ends?

3. According to Seneca in Letter LXXXVIII, what should man strive to become?

4. When does Seneca say that men that began to claim pieces of land as their property?

5. What is the unusual transgression about, ending Letter LXXXVI?

Short Essay Questions

1. How, according to Seneca, are life and philosophy both the gifts of the gods?

2. Why does Seneca believe only a philosopher can appreciate wisdom?

3. Who was Scipio and why does Seneca praise him?

4. What advice does Seneca give Lucilius about coping with illness and the sometimes severe symptoms that accompany it?

5. What lesson can be learned from the city that burned?

6. What is the purpose of technology, according to Seneca?

7. What is the value of a liberal arts education, according to Seneca?

8. Why does Seneca say the Stoic account of causation is better than both Aristotle's and Plato's?

9. What does Plato add to Aristotle's theory of causation?

10. Which city burned and how did it affect Seneca?

(see the answer keys)

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