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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was Day fascinated with as an adolescent, according to Brooks?

2. What was the name of Dwight Eisenhower's mistress?

3. What happens to Perkins in 1939 that tests her resilience?

4. What two types of virtues does Brooks compare and contrast in the Introduction?

5. What terms does Brooks use to describe a life of humility versus a life of egotism in Chapter 1?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why was Day intensely annoyed with Forster Batterham during the time when she nursed his partner Nanette through her terminal illness?

2. What is Eisenhower's farewell speech when he left the presidency still remembered for today?

3. What was Eisenhower's personal opinion of General Douglas MacArthur?

4. What virtue does Brooks say is generally misunderstood in Chapter 4?

5. What were some of Ida Eishenhower's early life struggles?

6. What did Viktor Frankl tell potential suicides in the concentration camp during WWII?

7. What historic event happened when Dorothy Day was 8 years old?

8. In Chapter 1, what trait does Brooks feel was more common in most people in the WWII-era than it is today?

9. What is the main difference between a career and a vocation as Brooks describes it?

10. What offense was Day arrested and jailed for in 1917?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Choose two figures that Brooks profiles in the book and write an essay discussing how their lives and experiences exemplify his claim that many people of admirable character "had to go down to go up" (13).

Essay Topic 2

How does the football player Joe Namath reflect what Brooks refers to at several points in the book as the ideals of the "Little Me"? Write an essay explaining your answer.

Essay Topic 3

How has the definition of both the word and larger idea of sin changed from the eighteenth century to today, in Brooks' estimation? Write an essay explaining your answer.

(see the answer keys)

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