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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What kind of friendship does Emerson prefer?
(a) A friendship that is "evenly matched."
(b) An intellectual friendship.
(c) A long-distance friendship.
(d) A rough kind of friendship.

2. How should one be a man, according to "Self-Reliance"?
(a) Be a nonconformist.
(b) Follow God's laws.
(c) Live in nature.
(d) Follow man's laws.

3. How should history be understood, according to Emerson's essay "History"?
(a) As subjective narrative.
(b) As biography.
(c) As the first and most basic art form.
(d) As a piece of the puzzle of the human experience.

4. Who can too often judge and categorize art and literature, according to "The Poet"?
(a) Umpires of taste.
(b) Censors of thought.
(c) Philosophers.
(d) Poets.

5. How does Emerson say we become aware of the changes in our lives brought on by experience?
(a) By observing those same changes in other people's lives.
(b) In retrospect.
(c) By living our lives.
(d) Through prayer.

6. According to "An Address", what subverts the truly moral character of man?
(a) American politics.
(b) Christianity.
(c) Industry.
(d) European academia.

7. Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of the best gift, according to "Gifts"?
(a) Something that comes directly from the giver.
(b) Something that acknowledges an essential truth about the giver.
(c) Something that reflects the giver.
(d) Something that acknowledges an essential truth about the receiver.

8. What is the mentality of 1844 based on, according to Emerson?
(a) The desire to be included in popular culture.
(b) The blind loyalty to government officials.
(c) The worth of the individual.
(d) Capitalism.

9. According to Emerson's "The Over-Soul", which of the following is NOT the essence of the over-soul?
(a) Intellectual discussion.
(b) Human consciousness.
(c) Spirituality.
(d) An indwelling sense of God.

10. How do we pass through life, according to "Experience"?
(a) As children in a maze.
(b) Pausing to learn from experience.
(c) Vain to think we make a difference in any life except our own.
(d) Unaware that it is miraculous.

11. What is the purpose of manners, according to Emerson's "Manners"?
(a) To demonstrate superiority over animals and savages.
(b) To establish social ranking.
(c) To facilitate the creation and function of society.
(d) To foster intellectual discussion.

12. Whose principles, which led to a new age in quantum physics, are similar to the ideas hinted at in "Circles"?
(a) Leonard Hofstadter's.
(b) Albert Einstein's.
(c) Gabriele Veneziano's.
(d) Robert Oppenheimer's.

13. What word or phrase means a belief that God's grace allows an individual to ignore all laws, divine and terrestrial?
(a) Divine providence.
(b) Antinomianism.
(c) Entitlement.
(d) Faith.

14. According to "Self-Reliance", what can bring you peace?
(a) Nothing but independence.
(b) Nothing but nature.
(c) Nothing but God.
(d) Nothing but yourself.

15. How was "The Transcendentalist" originally delivered?
(a) As a eulogy.
(b) As a commencement address.
(c) As a lecture.
(d) As a letter to Henry David Thoreau.

Short Answer Questions

1. What are "apologies for gifts," according to Emerson?

2. Why does Emerson say every man is not duplicitous for not only being partialist?

3. Who is the author of "Selected Writings"?

4. Where did Emerson deliver "The Lord's Supper" as a sermon?

5. What is bereft of models of heroism, according to Emerson's "Heroism"?

(see the answer keys)

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