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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. At what point does Beauvoir claim an individual has the ability to decide and choose?
(a) When he responds to the consequences of spontaneous acts.
(b) When the usefulness of spontaneous acts are identifiable by the individual.
(c) When the moments of his life begin to be organized into behavior.
(d) When he can see and manipulate the affects of spontaneous acts on the physical world.

2. How does Beauvoir define the Aesthetic Attitude?
(a) The belief that man can only be free by separating from others.
(b) The objection that only the isolated man is free.
(c) The attitude that freedom can only be willed while being around others.
(d) The objection that man cannot will himself free because the individual is almost always free by being around others.

3. What is the focus of the adventurer?
(a) To live in defiance of oppression for ambiguous goals.
(b) To satisfy a desire for existence in a present, subjective, abstract moment.
(c) To enter the future by leaving memorable acts for the past.
(d) To define life by attempting to will himself free.

4. What does Beauvoir identify as the worst thing to be said for violence?
(a) It begins cycles of violence motivated by revenge that removes freedom for all.
(b) It breaks people out of the recognition of their ambiguity by defining absolute consequences for misuse of freedom.
(c) It leads to our enslavement to tactics rather than thought.
(d) It forces us to sacrifice men who are in our way as well those who fight on our side -- or even ourselves.

5. What does Descartes credit man's unhappiness to, according to Beauvoir?
(a) The inner conflict between doing right and doing what he wants.
(b) Having first been a child.
(c) His inability to accept his ambiguity.
(d) His lack of freedom.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Beauvoir note to be the objection of oppressors who are facing overthrow for the cause of freedom?

2. How does the type of future facing individual humans affect civilizations such as Ancient Greece and Rome, according to Beauvoir?

3. What does Beauvoir report to be the child's situation?

4. Beauvoir claims that dualists use their basic belief to establish what idea?

5. What is the illustration Beauvoir uses to prove her assertion of stubbornness in the face of impossibility?

(see the answer key)

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