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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. How does Beauvoir explain that a child, himself, is not serious?
(a) A child is not aware that his fate is the grave.
(b) A child is allowed to play and expend his existence freely to passionately pursue and joyfully attain goals which he has set up for himself.
(c) A child's thoughts are often fanciful and unrealistic.
(d) A child is not affected by the knowledge of things that have been established before him.

2. During their stage of freedom, how does Beauvoir claim that a child sees adults?
(a) As benevolent dictators that provide their needs.
(b) As fanciful projections of their uninhibited minds.
(c) As divinities.
(d) As physically threatening.

3. How does Beauvoir claim the condition of the world changes from child to adolescence?
(a) The world is no longer ready made, but must be made.
(b) When a child begins to realize he cannot create his own existence, he becomes accountable for his thoughts.
(c) The individual begins to realize that matter has significant influence on thought.
(d) The adolescent realizes his decisions have affects.

4. What comes to the individual at the point he begins to notice the conflicts of the adult world, according to Beauvoir?
(a) The individual has the choice of holding to existentialist myths or accepting his ambiguity.
(b) The individual must at last assume his subjectivity.
(c) The individual can pursue freedom or seriousness.
(d) The individual faces the daunting challenge of pursuing ethics that have none of the inconsistencies that have plagued societies through history.

5. What does Beauvoir report to the the qualities of God that establishes moral standards?
(a) A moral code given from God removes the demands from human minds to create one.
(b) A moral code from God contributes to establishing a moral consensus that directs thought.
(c) A moral code from God constricts believers to live within boundaries.
(d) A God can pardon, efface and compensate.

Short Answer Questions

1. In what sense does Beauvoir claim that every man is free?

2. How does Beauvoir characterize the response of Western women when the structures that shelter them seem to be in danger?

3. What quote from Lenin does Beauvoir use to demonstrate the Marxist revolution has human meaning?

4. What prevents a moral question from presenting itself to the child according to Beauvoir?

5. How does Beauvoir explain that the Marxist paradox lends to her theory the scheme of man is ambiguous?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Beauvoir define the child's world?

2. How does Beauvoir claim one can avoid nihilism?

3. How does Beauvoir relate nature of man's existence to the past, present, and future in Part I?

4. What does Beauvoir point out as the difference between the passionate man and the adventurer?

5. How does Beauvoir define the serious man?

6. According to Beauvoir, how have existentialists defined their philosophy?

7. How does Beauvoir explain that nihilism becomes the desire for power?

8. What does Beauvoir suggest to be a flaw in Existential philosophy?

9. How does Beauvoir characterize Materialists?

10. What does Beauvoir detail as the consequences of failure to the serious man?

(see the answer keys)

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