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

2. According to Viorst, in middle age we inspire far less ________ than we do ___________.
(a) Respect; pity.
(b) Lust; respect.
(c) Admiration; annoyance.
(d) Hatred; love.

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

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What's the title of the book?

2. 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."

3. What does the father in the poem referenced in Chapter 14 finally conclude?

4. As our parents grow old, get sick, and die, we learn to do what in relation to imperfect connections?

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. What are some of the different types of loss and mourning discussed in Chapter 16? Do we experience them all in the same way?

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

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

4. 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?

5. Which necessary loss is discussed in Chapter 12?

6. According to the book, why are friends so important?

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 942 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample