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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. What binds a man to the absurd?
(a) His consciousness of it.
(b) His intelligence.
(c) His sentient nature regarding death.
(d) Philosophy.

2. In what way are people's minds related?
(a) Through common purpose.
(b) Through common beliefs and visions.
(c) Through common contradictions.
(d) Through the collective unconscious.

3. What comment does Camus make about Greek tragedy?
(a) It is too culturally specific to be useful.
(b) It is rich in lessons.
(c) It is over-estimated.
(d) It is obscure, hard to comprehend.

4. 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.

5. What would be a synonym for the phrase 'fecund rumination' (p. 93 of the Penguin Edition)?
(a) Lively imagination.
(b) Happy return.
(c) Vetinarary fees.
(d) Productive thought.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is indicated when melancholy arises in the human heart?

2. Who liberated Death?

3. What is ridiculous about the writer who emulated Peregrinos?

4. According to Camus, what makes the myth of Sisyphus tragic?

5. What is the prime interest of everyday man?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Camus' basic criticism of phenomenology?

2. Why does Camus wonder if an absurd work of art is truly possible?

3. What is The Trial about?

4. What does humanity need to do in order to understand the world?

5. What important feature of Dostoevsky's work does Camus explore in the section entitled 'Kirilov'?

6. How does Camus describe the Church's treatment of heretics?

7. Why is the fame of a writer likely to endure and that of an actor not to do so?

8. What technique of Kafka's does Camus posit as the reason for the unity in that writer's work?

9. Why does Camus call Prometheus the 'first of modern conquerors'?

10. What is absurd man and how can he deal with his predicament?

(see the answer keys)

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