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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In order to take pleasure in suffering, Sontag argues that one must necessarily have which of the following?
(a) Deep seated feelings of misanthropy.
(b) A sense of moral or intellectual superiority.
(c) A sadistic streak characteristic of serial killers.
(d) Distance from the source of suffering.

2. According to Sontag, people are less responsive to images of violence in which of the following contexts?
(a) Instances of mass casualty.
(b) Armed conflicts amassing the deaths of military personnel.
(c) Times of seemingly unending war.
(d) Times of relative peace in one's home nation.

3. Sontag argues that which of the following effects keeps the television viewer's attention "light", "mobile" and fairly "indifferent" to the images on the screen?
(a) Image-glut.
(b) Overload.
(c) Advertising.
(d) Media coverage.

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

5. For Sontag, the impression that there are more news of atrocity is probably which of the following?
(a) A regrettable truth.
(b) An illusion.
(c) An obnoxious overstatement.
(d) An accurate perception.

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

7. "Without Sanctuary" was a book of photographs taken of which of the following atrocities?
(a) Lynchings of black Americans in the 1930s.
(b) The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921.
(c) The Rwanda atrocities.
(d) Japanese internment in the U.S.

8. Which of the following best describes the "CNN effect" as discussed by Sontag?
(a) Extensive media coverage directly affected local politics.
(b) Distorted media coverage misleads the public.
(c) Media coverage lead to the sentiment that something must be done.
(d) Outrageous media coverage lead to a backlash against the media.

9. "Dead Troops Talk (A Vision After an Ambush of a Red Army Patrol near Moqor, Afghanistan, Winter 1986" was a photograph taken by which of the following types of photographer?
(a) An embedded journalist.
(b) A civilian bystander with a disposable camera.
(c) A military photographer archiving the event for intelligence purposes.
(d) A Canadian artist attempting to envision the horrors of a distant war.

10. Sontag notes that although museums remembering atrocities are common practice, there is no museum in the United States dedicated to which of the following atrocities?
(a) The massacre of the Native Americans.
(b) The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
(c) The German Holocaust.
(d) The American slave trade.

11. Sontag suggests that Plato anticipated which of the following psychological models?
(a) Pavlov's classical conditioning.
(b) Skinner's box.
(c) Freud's id, ego and superego.
(d) Jung's archetypes.

12. Neither compassion nor moral indignation would be enough to do which of the following?
(a) Motivate action.
(b) Stop suffering.
(c) End violence.
(d) Inspire change.

13. Which of the following does Sontag suggest is an ethical act?
(a) Mourning.
(b) Remembering.
(c) Loving.
(d) Fighting.

14. Events enter the collective memory, not by a natural process of remembering but by:
(a) Repeated exposure.
(b) Active designation of significance.
(c) Subconscious selection.
(d) Government propaganda.

15. Which work of literature does Sontag cite as evidence that war was once seen as part of a man's life?
(a) The Odyssey.
(b) The Iliad.
(c) The Republic.
(d) The Aeneid.

Short Answer Questions

1. Sontag lists three impulses which may be satisfied by viewing images of atrocities. Which of the following is NOT one of them?

2. Which Dreiser novel does Sontag reference in the final chapter?

3. Sontag suggests that photographs do NOT ask which of the following tasks of the viewers?

4. Contemporary society, at the time Sontag wrote the book, unanimously witnessed a rise of which of the following in the media?

5. Concerned with the public health risk posed by cigarette smoking, officials in which country suggested that images of black lungs, damaged hearts or periodontal disease be included on the warning label for tobacco products?

(see the answer keys)

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