View a FREE sample

This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 3, The Positive Aspect of Ambiguity, Sections 4-5, The Present and the Future, Ambiguity and Conclusion.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to Beauvoir, how is freedom present within the drama of choice?
(a) Within the analysis that leads to a decision.
(b) Only in the form of contingency.
(c) Before the realization that a choice must be made.
(d) In the moment before consequences are evident.

2. To what conclusion to Beauvoir arrive regarding Sartre's internal choices that are affected by personal passions?
(a) Since Sartre considers man as driven by internal passions, he brings to question the existence of the physical world and its causes and effects.
(b) Since man is directed by his eternal passions, the external force of God has no influence in Sartre's existentialism.
(c) Since passions and their choices are internal, there are no objective standards by which to define their usefulness.
(d) Sartre's man eliminates the needs for external moral influence by following passions that eventually lead to personal benefit.

3. What contradiction does Beauvoir suggest will come to those who fight for a cause due to the complexity of the world?
(a) In order to win an urgent victory, one may be brought to sacrifice his principles.
(b) In order to win an urgent victory, one may be brought to the point of fighting against valid causes.
(c) In order to win an urgent victory, one may be brought to face a humiliating defeat.
(d) In order to win an urgent victory, one may be brought to leaving a valued friend.

4. How does Beauvoir consider stubbornness in the face of an obstacle that is impossible to overcome?
(a) As stupidity.
(b) As that trial that brings experience.
(c) As the beginning of innovation.
(d) As the seed of innocent hope.

5. What does Beauvoir suggest of movements whose means of achieving a goal contradicts the goal?
(a) The individual who takes such an approach will become a politician.
(b) The whole enterprise sinks into absurdity.
(c) The action will set off a chain of events that will negate the goal.
(d) The goal and the individual will be disregarded.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Beauvoir claim to be the choice that comes to a young man after a long crisis?

2. How does human spontaneity give purpose to a human life, according to Beauvoir?

3. Why does Beauvoir claim that some individuals have lives that slip into an infantile world?

4. How does Beauvoir claim that Marxists consider man's actions to be valid?

5. How does Beauvoir compare the present to the future?

(see the answer key)

This section contains 662 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample