View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why were camp inmates frightened of decisions?
(a) They were frightened of everything.
(b) They worried about the consequences of excercising their own judgement.
(c) They believed that fate was one's master.
(d) They were scared of bringing attention to themselves.

2. Why does the author decide not to try to escape the concentration camp?
(a) He believes that there is too much space outside the concentration camp, and they will not make it to the next populated town.
(b) He fears that the route out of the camp is too visible.
(c) He decides that his recent good mood would make the escape too obvious, and asks his friend to escape on his own.
(d) He decides that he would rather stay with his patients.

3. Who greets the prisoners upon their arrival at the concentration camp?
(a) The director of the camp.
(b) Cheerful prisoners speaking different languages.
(c) An unidentified man who directs the prisoners to form two separate lines.
(d) Cruel SS guards with dogs.

4. Why did the Capo in the author's working party do him favors?
(a) The author listened to his marital problems and offered psychotherapeutic advice.
(b) The author aided him in finding the strongest men to work on his team.
(c) The author was his doctor before he was put in prison.
(d) This Capo favored him because they were from the same hometown.

5. What rule did the author establish for himself in Auschwitz?
(a) He would try to earn the confidence of everyone he met.
(b) He would answer all questions truthfully.
(c) He would work as hard as possible when given a task.
(d) He would always eat his food slowly to enjoy it as much as possible.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was the main characteristic of the second phase of the prisoner's mental life?

2. What does the author claim hurts most about the physical blows from SS officers?

3. How is humor characterized in camp life?

4. What is the "delusion of reprieve"?

5. How do psychiatrists expect people to react in abnormal situations?

Short Essay Questions

1. What did Frankl call to "run into the wire"? What role did this play in camp life, and in the mental lives of prisoners in camp?

2. How did the Capo alter the normal reactions of those prisoners assigned to clean latrines?

3. In the first section of the text, "Experiences in a Concentration Camp," what groups does Frankl identify within the concentration camp? Which group does he focus on? Why?

4. Frankl writes that because of the harsh realities of camp life and the "constant necessity of concentrating on the task of staying alive," some of the prisoners "regressed" to a more primitive form of mental life. How does he see this manifest itself?

5. How did Frankl win the favor of the Capo in his working party? Why was this important for him?

6. How were prisoners separated when they arrived at Auschwitz?

7. What were the initial conditions of camp life for the prisoners that arrived to Auschwitz with Frankl?

8. In the section on "Experiences in a Concentration Camp," Frankl describes a physical condition that affected "nearly all the camp inmates." What was this condition? How did it affect Frankl?

9. In the first section of Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy, Frankl writes of his job working to lay tracks for a railway line. What was this job like? Who paid for it?

10. According to Frankl, what characterizes the prisoners' thinking when they first arrive at camp?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,369 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample