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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. Why did Gary Gilmore claim that he was not a great thief.

2. How did Kenneth Bianchi convince some clinicians that he was not one of the Hillside Stranglers?

3. What percentage of serious crimes are committed by psychopaths?

4. How well do psychopaths get along with one another?

5. How did Ray trap the author by showing him a knife?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is it important to determine whether a psychopath is mentally ill or simply a wrongdoer?

2. Why has the author decided that it's important to write about the technical topic of psychopathy at a level that the public can understand?

3. What does William March list as some reasons good people do not readily recognize psychopathy?

4. What motivates most people to abide by the rules of society?

5. How was Jeffrey able to override any suspicions Elyse should have had about him?

6. Why are psychopathic killers often judged legally sane?

7. What experience has convinced the author that the public needs to understand psychopathy?

8. Why has the author determined not to devote much of his book to psychodynamic, unconscious processes of psychopathy?

9. What are some important differences between the violent acts of psychopaths and the violent acts of other criminals?

10. Without an internal motivation to abide by society's rules, what is the psychopath free to do?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

An Australian judge put a psychopathic killer into a mental institution rather than a prison on the grounds that "anyone would have to be crazy to behave in that fashion." In your essay, support or refute the argument that psychopaths are obviously mentally ill. Use information from the text to support your thesis.

Essay Topic 2

One of the characteristics of psychopathy is an inability to learn from past experience. Write an essay explaining how this inability could cripple a person's ability to make progress in life.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay giving advice to parents whose very young child has begun to exhibit signs of psychopathy: indifference to the feelings of others, cruelty to animals and other children, etc. Give the parents your opinion as to whether it is an advantage to get an early diagnosis or not. Support your idea with material from the text.

(see the answer keys)

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