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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What sort of thing did Selena's children no longer want her to do when they separated?
(a) Hire a babysitter.
(b) Make a Travel Book.
(c) Leave a note on their dresser.
(d) Set out their clothes.

2. What is the name of the son in Death of a Salesman that Viorst uses as an example of the restricting roles some parents foist on their children?
(a) Biff.
(b) Jonathan.
(c) William.
(d) Jeff.

3. To what was Richard Steele referring in the following quote? "... the compleatest image of heaven and hell we are capable of receiving in this life."
(a) Family.
(b) Death.
(c) Friendship.
(d) Marriage.

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

5. Which of the following psychoanalysts said we create religion to "exorcise the terrors" of nature?
(a) Erich Fromm.
(b) Erik Erikson.
(c) Stanley Greenspan.
(d) Sigmund Freud.

6. The title of Chapter 12 lists what?
(a) Types of teenagers.
(b) Types of adults.
(c) Types of friendships.
(d) Types of parenting styles.

7. Viorst quotes this book, written by Kathrin Perutz, in Chapter 13.
(a) Heaven on Earth.
(b) I Hate You, Too.
(c) Marriage is Hell.
(d) The Most Complicated Relationship.

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) Faust isn't very good because it was written by an elderly person.
(b) It's never too late.
(c) Aging is hard work.
(d) Goethe must have really enjoyed his work.

9. Friends and intimate partners are considered what?
(a) Two different types of relationships.
(b) One and the same.
(c) A rare phenomenon found only in humans.
(d) The true test of a good marriage.

10. Madame Bovary uses what metaphor to describe marriage?
(a) A beautiful spring day spent in a field of wildflowers.
(b) A great rosy-plumaged bird soaring in the splendors of poetic skies.
(c) An intimate and joyful day on a private beach in Fiji.
(d) An exquisite French dessert, delicious, but hard to create.

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

12. According to Chapter 14, parents suffer from the one of the following in a similar fashion to children.
(a) Insecurity about themselves.
(b) Oedipus complex.
(c) Fear of abandonment.
(d) Separation anxiety.

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

14. As our parents grow old, get sick, and die, we learn to do what in relation to imperfect connections?
(a) Ignore them and continue on our own path.
(b) Stop complaining about them.
(c) Work them out.
(d) Give thanks.

15. Viorst thinks about development as a lifelong series of what?
(a) Disappointments.
(b) Necessary losses.
(c) Changes.
(d) Setbacks.

Short Answer Questions

1. What are the names of Viorst's three sons?

2. In what form of internalization do we take on aspects of those we have loved?

3. Who said the following? "Now she is aware of some of the losses you incur by being here -- the extraordinary rent you have to pay as long as you stay."

4. Which book referenced in Chapter 14 references the "good mother"?

5. Parents have trouble seeing their children as what?

(see the answer keys)

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