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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. What do the Project Mercury engineers think will be an easy task?
(a) Launching the rockets.
(b) Controlling the capsule while in space.
(c) Recovering the capsule after it splashed down.
(d) Training the astronauts.

2. When Jane Conrad realizes the cavalier manner in which the pilots discuss their killed comrades, what does she liken their discussion to?
(a) Politics.
(b) Debates.
(c) Sports.
(d) Lectures.

3. What is Jim Lovell's nickname?
(a) Scooby.
(b) Shaky.
(c) Ears.
(d) Ace.

4. Which of the astronauts is actually an atheist (although he told the press that he had previously "attended" a Christian Science church with his wife)?
(a) John Glenn.
(b) Alan Shepard.
(c) Gus Grissom.
(d) Scott Carpenter.

5. Who is in charge of testing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base?
(a) NASA engineers.
(b) The Secretary of the Navy.
(c) Psychiatrists.
(d) General Schwickenberg.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why do the astronauts spend so much time in the procedures trainer?

2. Why do the pilots report to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base?

3. Where are the new astronauts stationed?

4. Which of the astronauts does not live with his family on or near the base, but houses his family 120 miles away from the base and lives in the base's Bachelor Quarters?

5. From the pilots' point of view, what is the only thing lacking during their astronaut training?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why do the astronauts not refer to themselves or the other astronauts as "astronauts"?

2. Why does Gus Grissom find the selection of Scott Carpenter as an astronaut odd?

3. Why do Chuck Yeager's comments in Phoenix almost set off a national scandal? What happens to avoid the scandal?

4. Why don't the wives ever discuss the dangers their husbands face each day?

5. Where is Muroc Field and what is is the significance of the project taking place there?

6. Why do many pilots choose to try to pilot a wounded aircraft to the ground rather than eject?

7. The training program for the chimpanzees is based on operant conditioning. Describe what that means for the chimpanzees.

8. Describe Jane Conrad's nightmares and hallucinations?

9. What is written in Conrad's file as a reason he isn't selected for the Mercury program?

10. Why does the Army fire Slick Goodlin and give the X-1 piloting assignment to Yeager?

(see the answer keys)

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