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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did Wall's photograph enable soldiers to do that they could not do in "real" life?
(a) Condemn the viewer.
(b) Glorify war.
(c) Speak while dead.
(d) Communicate propaganda.

2. Sontag claims in Chapter 6 that, despite historical evidence to the contrary, we have come to see which of the following as the natural state of being?
(a) Peace.
(b) War.
(c) Fear.
(d) Uncertainty.

3. According to Sontag, if one feels sympathy for the victims of suffering, it helps ensure that one cannot be ___________.
(a) An objective observer.
(b) A heartless bystander.
(c) A sadistic voyeur.
(d) Responsible for or complicit in the suffering.

4. What is the primary message carried by images of atrocity?
(a) This happened.
(b) This is wrong.
(c) Never forget.
(d) We must change.

5. Sontag discusses another common belief regarding media coverage of an event, and suggested that it may seem to contradict the first common belief she addresses. What is this second idea?
(a) Overexposure to images in the media makes people callous.
(b) Limited exposure diminishes the impact the images have on an audience.
(c) Repeated images in the media exhaust our ability to prevent new atrocities.
(d) The media sensationalizes stories of atrocity.

6. Sebastiao Salgado's work called "Migrations: Humanity in Transition" was often criticized as being:
(a) "Generalizing."
(b) "Exploitative."
(c) "Melodramatic."
(d) "Cinematic."

7. Although images were more prevalent, which of the following was NOT also true?
(a) People's reactions to the images were greater.
(b) The human capacity to absorb the images of suffering increased.
(c) Humanity became oversensitive to images of suffering.
(d) People's understanding of atrocity increased.

8. How many soldiers did Wall's photograph depict?
(a) Thirteen.
(b) Three.
(c) Twelve.
(d) Five.

9. Sontag cites the Japanese narrative "Chushingura" in which the protagonist stops to appreciate the beauty of cherry blossoms one last time before committing ritual suicide as an example of which kind of shocking art?
(a) The type which is often underestimated for its emotional impact.
(b) The type which, through the narrative form of pathos, continually induces emotional reactions.
(c) The type which is perennially performed, but which achieves less of a reaction with each performance.
(d) The type which is only relative to a particular culture, and thus has little effect on outsiders.

10. Sontag claims that witnessing atrocity through images is not much different than witnessing them in person. What does she say these activities had in common?
(a) Callousness, exploitation and distance.
(b) Ability to be redirected, callousness and ease.
(c) Ease, distance and the ability to be redirected.
(d) Callousness, distance and apathy.

11. Sontag argues that there are two extreme positions on a spectrum of war experience which create the same idea that images of war are no longer emotionally-jarring for an audience? Which two positions are they?
(a) Soldiers and civilians of war-torn regions.
(b) Unexperienced cynics and the war-weary.
(c) Victims and perpetrators of atrocity.
(d) Scholars and politicians.

12. In transforming an event or person into something that can be owned, photographs:
(a) Degrade.
(b) Elevate.
(c) Objectify.
(d) Commoditize.

13. Overall, Sontag seems to believe that images are ultimately which of the following?
(a) Frightening.
(b) Evocative, but limited.
(c) Dangerous.
(d) Powerful.

14. Sontag corrects her earlier argument by claiming that which of the following is eroded by modern media saturation?
(a) Human empathy.
(b) Sense of reality.
(c) Human decency.
(d) Sense of urgency.

15. Which of the following produced a documentary about a "deranged" Pacific war veteran who drives the streets of Tokyo speaking against Japanese war crimes?
(a) Jeff Wall.
(b) Larisa Shepitko.
(c) Kazuo Hara.
(d) Theodore Dreiser.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following poets expressed concerns about the effect of national-scale events on human sensibility in 1800?

2. Sontag writes that provocative images may have which of the following effects on viewers?

3. _______ is a modern development in camera use.

4. Andy Warhol silk screened which of the following images of war as his only direct statement about the atrocity of war?

5. "Without Sanctuary" was a book of photographs taken of which of the following atrocities?

(see the answer keys)

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