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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What, according to Teresa, is the value of continuously reflecting on one's own character?
(a) being ready for trials before they come
(b) having answers to all of life's questions
(c) always knowing the right thing to say
(d) being able to live among the worldly

2. Who may, according to Teresa, cause doubt and turning away from her experience as soon as she is out of the throes of it?
(a) sisters who know more than she does
(b) people who come with too many earthly problems
(c) the harsh realities of day to day living
(d) inept and paranoid spiritual advisors

3. What does Teresa stress at the beginning of her treatise?
(a) knowing the Beloved
(b) knowing the Bible
(c) knowing oneself
(d) knowing the catechism

4. What does Teresa classify as a sign of the intention to draw ever closer to God?
(a) heartborken sobs
(b) indifference
(c) perseverance
(d) more study on prayer

5. What metaphor does Teresa use to discuss spiritual consolations?
(a) earth
(b) fire
(c) water
(d) air

6. What is the composition of the castle?
(a) solid, carved stone
(b) brick and mortor
(c) diamond or some clear crystal
(d) cedars from Lebanon

7. How is the soul once it moves into the Second Dwelling?
(a) experimenting with temptations
(b) more aware of the temptations
(c) unaware of temptations
(d) free of temptations

8. What does a sister do when entering into the Fifth Dwelling?
(a) changes her clothes
(b) opens her mind to spiritual infinity
(c) dies to her own desires
(d) bows low and says the Our Father

9. What does Teresa say about good works done outside of communion with God ?
(a) They make up for other failings.
(b) They are useful to other people.
(c) They come from a spirit of evil.
(d) They open the door to God.

10. What does Teresa say the mind will do if it is allowed to wander during prayer?
(a) drift back towards God
(b) inevitably hopelessly stimulate the imagination
(c) recall all the things one needs to pray for
(d) seek out the weaknesses in the soul

11. What, according to Teresa, motivated Jesus to raise Lazarus from the dead?
(a) grief
(b) joy
(c) favoritism
(d) self-esteem

12. What is the simile of the soul's remaining willing and receptive so that God will shape her into a selfless lover?
(a) fresh baked bread
(b) blank pages
(c) warm sealing wax
(d) boiling water

13. What does Teresa suggest might be offered as a temptation in the second dwelling?
(a) lasting peace if one does not progress beyond
(b) a feeling that one has arrived
(c) seemingly virtuous worldly alternatives
(d) the sense that the sould is right with God

14. How does Teresa say some souls react when God tests their strength and dependence on Him?
(a) out of proportion to what is necessary to endure the trial
(b) doing nothing and hoping for the better
(c) defiantly toward all things spiritual
(d) slowly, delaying their progress

15. What is it when the soul retreats from the senses and begins to rebuild the temple where it can go to worship?
(a) the Prayer of the Faithful
(b) the Prayer of Contrition
(c) the Prayer of Recollection
(d) the Lord's Prayer

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Teresa say some of her sisters do when they are engrossed in their own reaction to what is happening in their souls?

2. What does Teresa say a person who prays must do?

3. Where does Teresa say her words come from?

4. To what does Teresa invite the sister who would enter the Fifth Dwelling?

5. What is Teresa's spiritual marriage analogy?

(see the answer keys)

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