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

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

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

4. The following headline ran in what paper? "HER OUTSIDE PREOCCUPATION CAN LEAVE HIM ISOLATED AT TIME OF MORE LEISURE"
(a) The Chicago Tribune.
(b) The New York Times.
(c) The Washington Post.
(d) The Wall Street Journal.

5. What is the "corporate characteristic" that Viorst mentions in Chapter 15?
(a) A family's medical history.
(b) A family's community involvement.
(c) A family's business or legacy.
(d) A family's collective character.

Short Answer Questions

1. In Chapter 14, Viorst lists what about her hometown?

2. Which recent development does Viorst think is a positive new step toward good death?

3. Name the foiled romantic in Flaubert's Madame Bovary.

4. According to Viorst, the different roles we assign ourselves keep life interesting and fluid, rather than _____________.

5. According to Chapter 14, parents suffer from the one of the following in a similar fashion to children.

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the fundamental tension in all man-woman marriages?

2. According to Chapter 17, what redefines us throughout our lives?

3. In thinking about losses as a lifelong theme, name some of the juxtapositions that Viorst discusses in Chapter 20.

4. Name the five stages of dying described by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. Briefly describe each stage.

5. What can happen as a result of a mother's fear that her child's psyche is fragile? How can this affect the child?

6. What impact does middle age tend to have on a marriage?

7. How does baggage from childhood put pressure on a marriage?

8. Viorst suggests two necessary losses in Chapter 14. Name one of them.

9. What does Freud say about religious thoughts of an afterlife?

10. Viorst describes a sort of "opposites attract" type marriage relationship where each party meets a neurotic need of the other party. What did she call this type of arrangement?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 917 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample