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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. Intimate male-female relationships are rare because of what?
(a) Women would just rather talk to other women.
(b) The sexual tension.
(c) The adultery factor.
(d) Socially unacceptable norms.

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

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

4. Who was Viorst describing when she said they fought death like a championship game?
(a) Her friend, Ruth.
(b) Her husband, Cecil.
(c) Her sister, Lois.
(d) Her mother.

5. Which famous author wrote this about the loss of his cherished wife: "The first plunge of the knife into the flesh is felt again and again"?
(a) C.S. Lewis.
(b) J.R.R. Tolkien.
(c) Victor Hugo.
(d) Charles Dickens.

Short Answer Questions

1. According to Viorst, what types of feelings are present in ALL friendships?

2. What is the key achievement of mid-life according to Viorst?

3. A man in his forties confessed to Viorst that he reviewed his life insurance policy after he was diagnosed with what?

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

5. 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."

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. According to Freud, is it unusual to have sexual feelings toward friends? How does this impact our friendships with the opposite sex?

4. What happens in our thirties, in relation to our parents?

5. Name two of the stages of mourning that Viorst describes in Chapter 16.

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

7. What does it mean if a child and mother aren't a good fit?

8. What are a few of the difficulties of a marriage relationship mentioned in Chapter 13?

9. 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?

10. How did Viorst's three friends approach death differently?

(see the answer keys)

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