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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Aside from officers, which individuals are often killed in combat for their toll on morale?

2. In what war did Lord Moran fight?

3. Which Civil War officer does Grossman quote at the beginning of Chapter 5?

4. What term does Grossman use in Chapter 6 to indicate the method one uses to kill in hand-to-hand-combat?

5. At the end of Chapter 4, what physical reaction to exhaustion and hunger does Grossman cite?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the Vietnam story of Chapter 4.

2. Why does the Vietnam Vet quoted in Chapter 7 choose to leave the army after six tours?

3. How does Grossman use his distance-guilt corollary to explain the oppression of the poor in Chapter 1?

4. In Chapter 4, what philosophical and literary justifications for killing does Grossman cite?

5. What does hard-to-soft mean?

6. What factors contribute to group absolution?

7. As discussed in Chapter 3, what is the emotional advantage of hand grenades?

8. According to Grossman in Chapter 4, how do soldiers deal with guilt and horror in combat?

9. How was the Roman centurion model more effective than the Greek phalanx, according to Grossman?

10. In Chapter 7, what comparison does Grossman draw between firing a gun and masturbation?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Throughout the book, Grossman has argues that conditioning has been the key to increasing shooting rates in combat zones. It bypasses the conscious mind's inclination to avoid killing. Write a three-part essay analyzing the types of conditioning used in a military context:

Part 1) What is standard conditioning, and how is it connected to Pavlov's work with dogs? How does this type of conditioning manifest itself in military training? What specific defenses is it trying to overcome? What is its goal?

Part 2) What is operant conditioning, and how is it connected to Skinner's work with rats? To what extent is military operant training more subtly employed than traditional conditioning? How does this conditioning alter soldier behavior in chaotic combat?

Part 3) In military emulation of a role model, who is the standard soldier's role model? What does this role model represent to the soldier, and how does he wish to emulate him? What aspects of aggression and manhood does this affect?

Essay Topic 2

Near the end of the book, Grossman illustrates the hardship faced by Vietnam veterans with a hypothetical return home from the war. Write an essay analyzing this hypothetical. Which types of soldiers are represented in the scenario, and what other war veterans are they compared to? How are these two wars different from one another? Why is the Vietnam experience so much more conducive to PTSD?

Essay Topic 3

Much of the beginning of ON KILLING deals with the issue of non-firers, a concern the military did not realize it had until after World War II and has been struggling to deal with effectively since. Write an essay in three parts dealing with non-firers and the military's response to them:

Part 1) Approximately what percentage of soldiers in World War II never fired their weapons? Discuss why, from a noncombatant's point-of-view, this seems absurd. What were these soldiers risking by not firing, and what sort of essential drive compelled them to risk this?

Part 2) Discuss the examples given from Rhodesia, the American Civil War, and the two World Wars that countless of soldier chose not kill. What kind of attitude was taken by fellow soldiers to non-killers? Why was the American military surprised by the firing rate of World War II?

Part 3) Upon learning of the low firing rate in World War II, the military made increasing this rate a top priority. What tactics did they use to do this, and how successful were they? How did this success manifest itself in Vietnam, and how was the process refined after Vietnam?

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