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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Beauvoir suggest that a child console himself when confronted with personal imperfection?
(a) By denying the flaw and moving to his next goal.
(b) By pinning his hopes on the future.
(c) By blaming his problem on another child.
(d) By holding to ignorance so as not to have to explain his predicament.

2. How does Beauvoir claim that Marxists consider man's actions to be valid?
(a) Only if the actions are in opposition of the bourgeois.
(b) Only if the man has not helped initiate his action by an internal movement or through free will.
(c) Only if the actions support the revolution of the proletariat.
(d) Only if the actions eliminate private property.

3. In what way does Beauvoir consider nihilistic thinking to be right?
(a) In realizing that peace is punctuated by oppression and revolution.
(b) In understanding the future will be marked by violence.
(c) In thinking that the world possesses no justification and that he himself is nothing.
(d) In understanding the obstacles that come from a complex world.

4. What explanation does Beauvoir give to assert that existentialist thought helps to build community.
(a) Beauvoir asserts, "Existentialists, with their dogmatic adherence to solipsism, help to rally a wide range of theorists to disprove their irrationality."
(b) Beauvoir asserts, "...existentialism,...(is) the plurality of concrete particular men projecting themselves toward their ends on the basis of situations whose particularity is as radical and irreducible as subjectivity.
(c) Beauvoir asserts, "Despite their disparate views, existentialists easily welcome any detractor because they only see them as creations of their own minds."
(d) Beauvoir asserts, "Existentialists are more often inviting of debate since they do not consider any idea as wrong because they accept no idea as right."

5. What does Beauvoir claim a child can do due to his state of security?
(a) He can choose a direction in which he desires to remove his ignorance.
(b) He can do with impunity whatever he likes.
(c) He can have all his needs provided without labor.
(d) He can create the world he wants to exist.

6. What does Beauvoir call pursuing the movement toward an end despite the obstacle of certain failure?
(a) The stone pounding complex.
(b) Fighting through delusions.
(c) The act of denial.
(d) The free movement of existence.

7. How does Beauvoir define the relationship of the "sub-man" to ethics and facticity?
(a) The "sub-man" rejects the ambiguity of ethics as influences over his facticity.
(b) The "sub-man" accepts ethics as the facticity of his existence as unchangeable.
(c) The "sub-man" rejects ethics and feels only the facticity of his existence.
(d) The "sub-man" considers ethics and facticity as interchangeable.

8. What does Beauvoir indicate can sometimes happen when there is a failure of the serious?
(a) Sometimes the serious man will revert to his childhood and depend on others for his purpose.
(b) Sometimes the serious man will recognize his ambiguity and act freely to establish an ethic to help him through his failure.
(c) It can bring about a radical disorder.
(d) The serious man will have to rely on what training he had as a child to deal with failure.

9. How does Beauvoir explain that Marxists perceive that acts can be regarded as good or bad?
(a) Through the revolt of a class which define aims and goals from a which a new state appears as desirable.
(b) Only when systems are formed in which each gives according to his ability.
(c) Only through the destruction of private property.
(d) Only when systems are designed that each takes according to his need.

10. What irony does Beauvoir suggest contributes to the most optimistic ethics.
(a) That all ethics eventually lead man to rationalize violations of their ethics.
(b) That although they seek to lift man to utopia, the eventually lead man to distopia.
(c) That although ethics are pursued to define man's existence, they always lead to ambiguity.
(d) That they have all begun by emphasizing the element of failure involved in the condition of man.

11. How does Beauvoir explain that the Marxist paradox lends to her theory the scheme of man is ambiguous?
(a) She suggests that, although, "Marxists deride traditional moral codes that forbid theft and adultery as being 'bourgeois', she points out that strict adherence to Marxist dogma is a moral imperative for revolution."
(b) She shows that, "Morality is based on denial, while work and labor is based upon acquisition."
(c) She agrees that, "One even the most devoted proletariat has what he needs, he begins feeding his desires."
(d) She points out that , "He wants to be, and to the extent that the coincides with this wish, he fails."

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

13. Upon what does Beauvoir claim that a child's freedom is based?
(a) Upon his willingness to trust adults without question.
(b) Upon ignorance that makes all his decisions meaningless.
(c) Upon adults whom he is only to respect and obey.
(d) Upon his inability to grasp the concept of cause and effect.

14. What does Beauvoir identify as the spirit of seriousness?
(a) Leaving the fallacy of materialists that only matter matters.
(b) Facing the reality that the fate of all is the grave.
(c) Leaving the fallacy of existentialism that only thought matters.
(d) To consider values as ready-made things.

15. How does Beauvoir explain how the passionate man different from the adventurer man?
(a) The passionate man acts from internal desires.
(b) The passionate man fails to fulfill his subjectivity rather than the content of the subjectivity.
(c) The passionate man attaches his adventure to unmovable ethics.
(d) The passionate man has a focus guiding his adventures.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Beauvoir identify dualism?

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

3. How does Beauvoir explain that the serious man becomes a dangerous tyrant?

4. To what does Beauvoir compare the "sub-man"?

5. According to Beauvoir, what is the goal of dualist teachings to their disciples?

(see the answer keys)

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