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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. Whose house did Eliot live in for a time along with this person's wife?

2. What, according to Brooks, is one key paradox of pride?

3. What privilege was conferred upon Augustine at a very young age?

4. Where did Marshall attend college?

5. What trait does Brooks say Randolph exuded, in the same way that Marshall had?

Short Essay Questions

1. What kind of devotion dominated Eliot's teenage years?

2. What significant event during the Civil Rights era did Rustin help to organize and execute?

3. What was the surprising outcome of Marshall's tense encounter with General Pershing in 1917?

4. How did George Marshall humiliate his father when he was a young boy?

5. How did Virginia Woolf characterize Eliot's work?

6. How was Marshall affected by his wife's sudden death?

7. What significant event in 1941 was A. Philip Randolph instrumental in organizing, but eventually called off?

8. What job did Marshall take in 1945 that he did not necessarily want but felt he had a responsibility to accept?

9. What sect's teachings did Augustine initially follow and then renounce?

10. How did Marshall win over his classmates at VMI?

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

Write an essay explaining the differences, as Brooks defines them, between vocation and career.

Essay Topic 3

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.

(see the answer keys)

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