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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. Why does the author, after leaving camp, upon seeing an image of prisoners lying on their bunks, argue that these aren't horrible images?
(a) They were images of people who had been spared the gas chambers.
(b) They are images of men that he knew, and all of them survived.
(c) They are images of men from the Capo who had been demoted, and one of them had been in a position to be cruel to the author before this demotion.
(d) They are images of sick prisoners who could stay in bed all day.

2. What does the author attempt to describe in this essay?
(a) The ways in which living in a concentration camp made prisoners stronger.
(b) The last days of the war.
(c) The reason that the Nazis rose to power.
(d) The experience of living in a concentration camp.

3. 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 always eat his food slowly to enjoy it as much as possible.
(c) He would work as hard as possible when given a task.
(d) He would answer all questions truthfully.

4. What did prisoners often discuss when they had a free moment?
(a) Food.
(b) Escape.
(c) Fear of death.
(d) The past.

5. What symptom characterizes the first mental phase of prisoners in concentration camps?
(a) Fatigue.
(b) Grief.
(c) Shock.
(d) Depression.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Frankl call "the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire."

2. Where does the author of the book travel in a "prison car" with small peepholes?

3. What job did Frankl do in freezing temperatures out of doors?

4. What job do those who greet the prisoners as they arrive to the concentration camp do?

5. How were prisoners identified?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did the SS respond to changing the list of prisoners who would board transport that would transfer prisoners to another camp or would send them to the gas chambers?

2. What kind of curiosity does Frankl write that the prisoners had?

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

4. How does Frankl categorize the psychological response to such an abnormal situation as life in a concentration camp?

5. As a new prisoner in camp, what decision did Frankl believe "marked the culminating point of the first phase of [his] psychological reaction"?

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

7. Due to the difficult conditions and the need to fight for survival, which prisoners does Frankl claim were most likely to survive life in the concentration camp?

8. 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?

9. What were the beatings like in the concentration camp? What does Frankl argue was the worst part of these?

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

(see the answer keys)

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