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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who was the psychologist who said that marriage requires "a wise balancing of love and hate"?
(a) Chad Goodwin.
(b) Sigmund Freud.
(c) America Ferrera.
(d) Israel Charny.

2. Which philosopher does Viorst quote in Chapter 14?
(a) Friedrich Nietzsche
(b) Leo Tolstoy
(c) Soren Kierkegaard
(d) Karl Marx

3. Simone de Beauvoir once said, "Old age is life's ___________."
(a) Final act.
(b) Cruel joke.
(c) Swan song.
(d) Parody.

4. Who said, "In erotic love, two people who were separate become one. In motherly love, two people who were one become separate."
(a) Erich Fromm
(b) Harriet Lerner
(c) Ingrid Bergman
(d) Sigmund Freud

5. What famous author's memoir entitled Speak, Memory does Viorst reference at the end of Chapter 14?
(a) Frank McCourt
(b) James Joyce
(c) Vladimir Nabokov
(d) Leo Tolstoy

6. Viorst contends that our unconscious sexual thoughts toward friends are masked as what?
(a) Hostility.
(b) Concern, devotion, and affection.
(c) Flirtatious behavior.
(d) Ridicule and anger.

7. According to Viorst, the different roles we assign ourselves keep life interesting and fluid, rather than _____________.
(a) Boring.
(b) Constricting.
(c) Topsy-turvy.
(d) Unpredictable.

8. What does this line from a poem by Longfellow tell us about old age? "Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, Completed Faust when eighty years were past."
(a) Aging is hard work.
(b) Goethe must have really enjoyed his work.
(c) It's never too late.
(d) Faust isn't very good because it was written by an elderly person.

9. Levinson calls a mid-life crisis what?
(a) Middle Age Panic.
(b) A questioning of everything.
(c) Forty and Fabulous.
(d) Mid-life Transition.

10. Which recent development does Viorst think is a positive new step toward good death?
(a) Doctor assisted death.
(b) Increased suicides of cancer patients.
(c) Hospital good-byes.
(d) The hospice movement.

11. Which famous author's daughter suddenly died at the age of 24?
(a) Ernest Hemingway.
(b) F. Scott Fitzgerald.
(c) Mark Twain.
(d) John Steinbeck.

12. What does the father in the poem referenced in Chapter 14 finally conclude?
(a) That his children will just grow up and go away.
(b) That he must let his children go.
(c) That he can indeed protect his children.
(d) That he never should have had children.

13. Which famous family does Viorst mention in Chapter 15?
(a) The Carnegies.
(b) The Kennedys.
(c) The Windsors.
(d) The Vanderbilts.

14. According to Chapter 20, Viorst is living on what to beat her middle-aged spread?
(a) Lean Cuisine.
(b) Grapefruit.
(c) NutriSystem.
(d) Weight Watchers.

15. According to Chapter 13, there can be no human love without what?
(a) Passion and romance.
(b) Ambivalence.
(c) Fear.
(d) A caring parental relationship.

Short Answer Questions

1. The following headline ran in what paper? "HER OUTSIDE PREOCCUPATION CAN LEAVE HIM ISOLATED AT TIME OF MORE LEISURE"

2. Viorst details which famous baby doctor in Chapter 18?

3. Viorst thinks about development as a lifelong series of what?

4. What is it called when someone keeps everything just the same after someone dies?

5. The earliest text on the subject of aging came from where?

(see the answer keys)

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