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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Faced with "information overload," people remember a photograph because it is a quick way of storing information, much like which of the following strategies?
(a) Quotations, maxims and proverbs.
(b) Jingles, mnemonics and rhymes.
(c) Quotations, mnenics and memory games.
(d) Maxims, proverbs and songs.

2. Ultimately, Sontag claims that war is:
(a) Perennial.
(b) Tragic.
(c) Horrific.
(d) Avoidable.

3. According to Sontag, photographs of atrocities are best received if they are:
(a) Well-lit and high-contrast.
(b) So artistically simple as to seem uncomposed.
(c) Images of familiar places or people.
(d) Close-ups of compelling scenes.

4. According to Sontag, photojournalism was used post-9/11 to:
(a) Inform the public of the event.
(b) Increase sensitivity toward Middle-Eastern Americans.
(c) Increase support for military action.
(d) Promote messages of peace and pacificism.

5. Which of the following magazines was NOT devoted entirely to photography?
(a) Picture Post.
(b) National Geographic.
(c) Vu.
(d) Life.

6. Which of the following is true about representations of the dead or dying in American media?
(a) American news media applies the same standards of decency to all victims, regardless of country of origin.
(b) American journalism favors American subjects, often overlooking people in "remote" places.
(c) The faces of the dead and dying from "exotic" places are more likely to be shown.
(d) FCC laws prohibit the printing of images including the faces of war victims.

7. In discussing the difference gender makes in perceptions of war, Sontag agrees with which of the following authors?
(a) Henry James.
(b) Virginia Woolf.
(c) Joyce Carol Oates.
(d) Tyler Hicks.

8. According to Sontag, _________ also influences the public's perception of war.
(a) Government policies.
(b) Anti-war sentiment.
(c) Education.
(d) Hollywood.

9. Sontag compares the desire for images of people in pain to which other recurrent type of image?
(a) Images of love.
(b) Images of nude bodies.
(c) Images of natural disasters.
(d) Images of happiness.

10. Which was the first war to be covered by television cameras?
(a) The War on Terror.
(b) The Korean War.
(c) Desert Storm.
(d) The Vietnam War.

11. Fenton's "The Valley of the Shadow of Death" is unique for which of the following reasons?
(a) It ignores the directions from the War Office.
(b) It requires hours of production and setup.
(c) It is the only photograph in his collection that did not need to be staged.
(d) It provides a uniquely poignant depiction of the horror of war.

12. In interpreting photographs, Sontag claims that everyone approaches the image as which of the following?
(a) A literalist.
(b) A realist.
(c) A critic.
(d) An idealist.

13. Sontag discusses a famous series of photographs taken by Tyler Hicks, titled "A Nation Challenged." What does this series depict?
(a) A wounded Taliban soldier.
(b) Osama Bin Laden.
(c) Hugo Chavez.
(d) The destruction of the Twin Towers.

14. Sontag notes that post-colonial Africa is most commonly known to the American public based on a series of which of the following groups of images?
(a) Images of post-war development and national improvement.
(b) Still images of freedom fighters, revolutionary independence movements, and guerrilla insurgencies.
(c) Images of American aid groups, support-a-child network assistants, and refugee camps.
(d) Photographs of the famine fields of Biafra, the Rwandan genocide, and the AIDS epidemic.

15. Paraphrasing Woolf, Sontag states that the privileged class fails to respond to images of war with the appropriate pain. She describes this as a:
(a) Failure of wealth.
(b) Failure of empathy and imagination.
(c) Failure of ignorance.
(d) Failure to behave humanely.

Short Answer Questions

1. Discussing the "co-spectatorship" and "indecency" of the image of the Vietcong suspect's execution, Sontag asserts which of the following?

2. Sontag discusses one year in European history in which the photograph was able to truly capture the nature of human atrocities. Which year was it?

3. Which Virginia Woolf book does Sontag discuss in detail?

4. Sontag claims that images of suffering in Africa send a double message. Which of the following best represents that message?

5. Sontag lists which of the following as images that the artist "makes"?

(see the answer keys)

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