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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. In Chapter Four, which of the following does Carr say became a prerequisite for intellectual achievement?
(a) The ability to project one's voice in a debating hall.
(b) Silent, solitary reading.
(c) The ability to read very quickly.
(d) The ability to write neatly.

2. In Chapter Three, what does Carr say thinking is governed by in a purely oral culture?
(a) The capacity of human memory.
(b) The ability of its teachers to impart debating skills.
(c) The length of the candles.
(d) The storytelling skills of its elders.

3. How did much of the early evidence of neuroplasticity come about?
(a) Through experiments about language.
(b) Through experiments about the movement of the right arm.
(c) Through experiments researches tracked on ultrasound machines.
(d) Through experiments that studied the brain's reaction to injuries.

4. What famous work of Saint Augustine's does Carr reference in Chapter Four?
(a) Phaedrus.
(b) The DaVinci Code.
(c) Illuminati.
(d) Confessions.

5. Which media mogul at RCA and NBC dismissed criticism of the mass media on which his career was built in the year 1955?
(a) Walter White.
(b) David Sarnoff.
(c) Les Moonves.
(d) Walter Winchell.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which former Rhodes Scholar and former student body president at Florida State University told Carr he does not read books any longer?

2. How did the rise of silent reading change the architecture of libraries, according to Carr?

3. Which alphabet became the model for most Western alphabets, according to Carr?

4. Who was one of the first biologists to argue that the human brain might be in a constant state of flux?

5. In Chapter Three, what does Ong say that writing does for consciousness?

Short Essay Questions

1. According to Carr, what is one way in which a reader can connect deeply with a book he is reading?

2. How did the neuroscientist Michael Merzenich prove the brain was more changeable than was previously thought with his experiments in the 1960s?

3. How does Carr describe the beliefs of a technological instrumentalist?

4. How does attending Dartmouth College in the 1970s affect Carr's attitudes towards computers?

5. What style of reading does author David Levy describe in Chapter Four that Carr thinks is useful for learning?

6. In Chapter Three, what does Carr identify as the format of some of the earliest Sumerian writing that archaeologists and historians have uncovered?

7. In Chapter Five, what is the most important difference Carr identifies between the Net and most of the mass media it replaces, like television?

8. When scientists first discovered how adaptable, or "plastic" the brain was, how did the field of neuroscience receive this revelation?

9. What invention did Lee de Forest create, and what technological advances did it allow for?

10. What does Carr say about the relationship between the so-called "intellectual ethic" of a technology and its inventor (45)?

(see the answer keys)

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