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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. Why does the author think that grief feels like suspense?
(a) One never knows when grief will end.
(b) One experiences frustrating habitual impulses.
(c) One does not know why grief is so painful.
(d) One does not know what grief really means.

2. What does the author think about people who are not offended by iconoclasm?
(a) They are God's chosen people.
(b) Curse them.
(c) Bless them.
(d) They are fools.

3. What practical problem did H.'s death solve?
(a) The author learned how to confront his own mortality.
(b) The author cannot put her ahead of God.
(c) The author learned how to cope with grief.
(d) It bridged the author's distance from God.

4. What does the author say is one of the miracles of love?
(a) The power of forgiveness.
(b) The power to see through enchantments.
(c) The gift of healing.
(d) The ability to explain.

5. What does the author think is the worst thing he could wish for H.?
(a) For her to come back.
(b) For her to have lived longer.
(c) For her to remain gone.
(d) For her to be with God.

Short Answer Questions

1. At the beginning of Chapter Four, what impossible result does the author admit he thought his records could achieve?

2. What does the author say can shatter the author's idea of God?

3. In Chapter Three, what is the author finally able to do?

4. What does the author think it means if human suffering is unnecessary?

5. How must God be approached?

Short Essay Questions

1. What human conditions does Lewis admit that he can never fully examine?

2. How does the consolation that previously so wearied Lewis, "She is in God's hands", strike Lewis by the last chapter?

3. In Chapter Three, what does Lewis come to see about his love for H. and his faith in God?

4. What is the difference between how Lewis earlier understood biblical consolations and how he came to understand them?

5. What is an imperfect religious image with which Lewis is familiar? What is Lewis's reflection on this image?

6. Toward what does Lewis turn when he becomes overwhelmed by feelings?

7. What are Lewis's reflections about images in the fourth chapter?

8. What does Lewis want when it comes to reality vs. ideas about reality?

9. For Lewis, why is a good God as formidable as God, the Cosmic Sadist? Describe the differences between the two ideas.

10. What feelings follow from Lewis's experiences when he is not thinking about H.? How is his feeling related to his grief?

(see the answer keys)

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