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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. Where do Harold and Erica meet at the beginning of Chapter 13?

2. What suffers with the success of the business in Chapter 14?

3. At the end of Chapter 15, what does Brooks characterize the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious mind as?

4. How does Brooks describe Erica's immediate family in Chapter 7?

5. What does Erica particularly admire about Raymond in Chapter 16?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does the business collapse in Chapter 14?

2. How does Erica get into the Academy in Chapter 7?

3. How does Harold battle overweening passion in Chapter 13?

4. In Chapter 9, what does Brooks say is often true ambitious individuals?

5. How does the success of Erica's business affect her marriage?

6. What did the marshmallow test predict about child development?

7. How is the mind inefficient, according to David Brooks?

8. What traumatic event occurs to Erica during a tennis match in Chapter 8?

9. Describe the ideology of Rationalism.

10. What different trajectories do Harold and Erica's lives take in Chapter 15?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay about Rationalism as David Brooks presents it in the book. What historical antecedents does Brooks discuss in "The Social Animal"? What events did Rationalism engender? What works did it produce? Discuss what essential truth of human society Rationalism ignores, according to Brooks. What useful information can be gleaned from this philosophy, and what should be discarded?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay about the teaching style that Ms. Taylor employs while assisting Harold with his senior paper. What are the five steps that are involved in this process? How does this teaching style internalize the knowledge? What role does Harold's journal have in this internalization? Discuss how this style of learning forever changes the way Harold takes in information.

Essay Topic 3

Seemingly in the name of evenhandedness, David Brooks presents two protagonists with disparate backgrounds. Write a three-part essay comparing and contrasting the early lives of Harold and Erica. How are their lives different? What effect does this background have on the worldview of each? Do you think this is a realist portrayal of this life experience?

Part 1) Racial background.

Part 2) Hometown and neighborhood.

Part 3) Education.

(see the answer keys)

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