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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who was Viorst describing when she said they fought death like a championship game?
(a) Her friend, Ruth.
(b) Her husband, Cecil.
(c) Her sister, Lois.
(d) Her mother.

2. Viorst quotes this book, written by Kathrin Perutz, in Chapter 13.
(a) Heaven on Earth.
(b) The Most Complicated Relationship.
(c) I Hate You, Too.
(d) Marriage is Hell.

3. What is it called when someone keeps everything just the same after someone dies?
(a) Museumification.
(b) Creepy.
(c) Mummification.
(d) Untouched grief.

4. Viorst's poem, "I bring the children one more glass of water," is about what?
(a) The anxieties of going to sleep as a child.
(b) Sex not being so sexy anymore.
(c) Being an overworked mother.
(d) A dream of helping children find clean water.

5. What type of relationship reinforces our self-knowledge, widens our worldview, and supports our self-esteem?
(a) Marriage.
(b) The parent-child relationship.
(c) A mentoring relationship.
(d) Friendship.

6. How did Cecil and Julia Saunders die?
(a) Their plane crashed on the way to their granddaughter's wedding.
(b) Someone broke into their house and killed them.
(c) They shot themselves.
(d) They died in a car accident.

7. According to Viorst, the different roles we assign ourselves keep life interesting and fluid, rather than _____________.
(a) Unpredictable.
(b) Boring.
(c) Topsy-turvy.
(d) Constricting.

8. Which famous author's daughter suddenly died at the age of 24?
(a) John Steinbeck.
(b) F. Scott Fitzgerald.
(c) Mark Twain.
(d) Ernest Hemingway.

9. Which three fictional characters discussed in the book does Viorst specifically mention in Chapter 20?
(a) Hamlet, Oedipus, Owen Meany
(b) Holden Caulfield, Hamlet, Marlow
(c) Emma Bovary, Alex Portnoy, Ivan Ilych
(d) Margaret, Alex Portnoy, King Lear

10. What was the name of the married woman with four children, mentioned in Chapter 12, who formed a non-sexual friendship with another man?
(a) Lucy.
(b) Dorothy.
(c) Evelyn.
(d) Elizabeth.

11. How many stages are there in the journey towards death according to Kubler-Ross?
(a) Three.
(b) Five.
(c) Two.
(d) Ten.

12. According to a psychologist in Chapter 13, husbands and wives are each other's what?
(a) Best friends.
(b) Coping mechanism.
(c) Greatest lovers.
(d) Intimate enemies.

13. Who said the following? "Now she is aware of some of the losses you incur by being here -- the extraordinary rent you have to pay as long as you stay."
(a) Emily Dickinson.
(b) George Eliot.
(c) Annie Dillard.
(d) Virginia Woolf.

14. Parents have trouble seeing their children as what?
(a) Separate people.
(b) Competent humans.
(c) A part of themselves.
(d) Anything but perfect.

15. What does this line from a poem by Longfellow tell us about old age? "Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last, Completed Faust when eighty years were past."
(a) Faust isn't very good because it was written by an elderly person.
(b) Aging is hard work.
(c) It's never too late.
(d) Goethe must have really enjoyed his work.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who once said, "God ordains that every genius shall have an illness at forty"?

2. What is the first phase of mourning discussed in Chapter 16?

3. Viorst references The World According to Garp and a mishearing of this term by a child.

4. In Chapter 16, Viorst quotes which psychologist who wrote the book Loss?

5. Which famous family does Viorst mention in Chapter 15?

(see the answer keys)

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