View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Boorstin say Moses introduced into Western culture?
(a) The notion of eternal reoccurrence.
(b) The idea of human sacrifice.
(c) The idea of a single omnipotent creator.
(d) The idea of original sin.

2. On what was Roman architecture based according to Boorstin?
(a) The harmony of the spheres.
(b) The human body.
(c) The symmetries in nature.
(d) The ideals of the philosophers.

3. For what was God cutting rods, in the quote from Martin Luther that opens Part 2?
(a) People who ask too many questions.
(b) Wicked people.
(c) To use for writing.
(d) People who don't inquire into the world.

4. What does Boorstin say Paleolithic man discovered in making images?
(a) Himself.
(b) Religion.
(c) Truth.
(d) Power.

5. What does Boorstin say Christianity helped man discover?
(a) Man's power to control nature.
(b) Man's power to create.
(c) Democracy.
(d) The New World.

6. What does the third-eye represent in Hindu art?
(a) The ability of special men to see beyond physical sight.
(b) Ancestors watching over people.
(c) The vision men share with the gods.
(d) Man's self-awareness.

7. What did St. Augustine give men in City of God?
(a) Cycles to develop through.
(b) A direction toward God.
(c) An end to their sufferings.
(d) An explanation of where evil came from.

8. What experience does Boorstin say Dante described in the Divine Comedy?
(a) Doubt and rediscovery of faith.
(b) Birth into religion.
(c) Exile from life to death.
(d) The rites of passage.

9. How does Boorstin characterize the Decameron?
(a) Chaste.
(b) Sacred.
(c) Panoramic.
(d) Autobiographical.

10. What does Byron say a sculptor should do in the epigraph to Part 4?
(a) Exceed his model.
(b) Perfect his model.
(c) Leave some flaw by which the work could be distinguished from the model.
(d) Capture his model.

11. What is Boorstin's subject in The Creators?
(a) How mankind has manipulated its environment.
(b) How mankind has invented itself.
(c) How mankind has come to face the question of its own survival.
(d) How mankind has progressed through the ages.

12. To what use did Romans put sculpture according to Boorstin?
(a) Teaching anatomy.
(b) Memorializing the dead.
(c) Marking territories.
(d) Holding up buildings.

13. What was Boccaccio's inspiration for the Decameron?
(a) Developments in the medieval church.
(b) The discovery of the New World.
(c) The plague.
(d) The Wars of the Roses.

14. For what does Boorstin say the Pyramids were built in Egypt?
(a) Housing the dead pharaohs.
(b) Challenging the gods.
(c) Measuring the progress of the heavens.
(d) Proclaiming the Egyptians' power as a people.

15. What does Boorstin say Afghanistani made possible according to Hindus?
(a) Strife.
(b) Transformation.
(c) Sight.
(d) Reincarnation.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Boorstin say is the difference between tragedy and comedy?

2. What does Boorstin say the Renaissance offered to Shakespeare?

3. What part of Philo of Alexandria's philosophy does Boorstin say determined what man could know and what he could not?

4. What was depicted in the first images?

5. Of what is The Odyssey a parable according to Boorstin?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 528 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample