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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is important about an actor's fame?
(a) Its fleeting nature.
(b) Ultimately it brings displeasure.
(c) Its illusory nature.
(d) The problem of paparazzi.

2. Who liberated Death?
(a) The messenger of the gods.
(b) Eurydice.
(c) The god of war.
(d) Persephone.

3. Which famous Frenchwoman was self-reliant?
(a) Madame La Guillotine.
(b) Violetta Valery
(c) Madame Bovary.
(d) Madame Roland.

4. Which art and science have close affinity?
(a) Music and mathematics.
(b) Music and kinesthetics.
(c) Painting and geometry.
(d) Fiction and physics.

5. What is a consequence of love?
(a) It is impossible to assess because every relationship is different.
(b) The stronger the love, the less absurd it is.
(c) The stronger the love, the stronger the absurdity.
(d) Marriage and children.

6. What common quality can be found in Kafka, Proust and Plotinus?
(a) Nostalgia for a lost paradise.
(b) Pity for suffering.
(c) Rejection of paradise.
(d) Nostalgia for childhood.

7. What status does Camus give Sisyphus?
(a) The fool.
(b) The absurd prince.
(c) The absurd hero.
(d) The trickster.

8. Once, how were the condemned spared the sight of the scaffold?
(a) Priests held a little painted screens in front of the condemned person's face.
(b) The execution chamber was never lit.
(c) The condemned person was blindfolded.
(d) The condemned person walked backwards, with two priests assisting.

9. In what ways are the thinker and the artist alike?
(a) Both have total commitment to success.
(b) Both have a tendency to reject expressionism.
(c) Both have a desire to influence the minds of others.
(d) Both thinker and artist have commitment and become themselves in their work.

10. Who was Adrienne Lecouvreur?
(a) A French actress.
(b) Voltaire's mistress.
(c) A French composer of operetta.
(d) A French philosopher.

11. What was Sisyphus' attitude to the gods?
(a) He scorned them.
(b) He was insanely jealous of them.
(c) He worshipped them and wanted to be a god, too.
(d) He viewed them with horror and distrust.

12. What does Camus see as an almost inevitable companion to passion?
(a) Conception.
(b) Struggle.
(c) Bliss.
(d) Murder.

13. What kind of thought is involved in the absurd?
(a) Lateral.
(b) Creative.
(c) Rational.
(d) Contradictory.

14. What temptation does Camus suggest is hardest to overcome?
(a) The temptation to explain.
(b) The temptation to commit suicide.
(c) The temptation to love.
(d) The temptation to be absurdy sentimental.

15. What assertions are always false?
(a) That everything is true and that everything is false.
(b) That being is false and nothingness is inevitable.
(c) That humans are wise and invincible.
(d) That everything is invisible and nothing is true.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why are European cemeteries hideous?

2. According to Camus, what is important about the idea that actions have consequences?

3. In what way is a modern worker similar to Sisyphus?

4. What is meant by 'savoir-faire'?

5. What comment does Camus make about Greek tragedy?

(see the answer keys)

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