View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What modern problem does Marx take as emblematic of man's treatment of nature?
(a) Pollution.
(b) Pandemics.
(c) Industrial agriculture.
(d) Wars.

2. What should man do in nature, in Thoreau's vision?
(a) Learn the ways of the animals.
(b) Study the ruthless ways of men.
(c) Oppose industrialism.
(d) Contemplate eternal laws.

3. What type of society was America (in the time of Marx's writing)?
(a) Non-agrarian.
(b) Urban.
(c) Suburban.
(d) Rural.

4. When was man supposed to return to nature, in Thoreau's vision?
(a) He should keep nature alive in his cities.
(b) For permanent residence.
(c) On weekends.
(d) For temporary respites.

5. What does modern man hope for, in spite of industrialism?
(a) Reform for pollution.
(b) Greater and greater resource use.
(c) Limits on pollution.
(d) Cooperation with nature.

6. What symbolic statement does Marx say Twain made in the raft being destroyed in Huckleberry Finn?
(a) Hiding from society is impossible.
(b) Fleeing from the law is dangerous.
(c) Technology has progressed beyond steamboats.
(d) Man is alone in the river of life.

7. What did Thoreau conclude as a result of his time at Walden?
(a) That man should simplify his life.
(b) That men are desperate and sad.
(c) That technology must be stopped.
(d) That men should remove themselves from society.

8. What defines complex pastoralism?
(a) Redemption of the alienation that comes from industrial modernity.
(b) Industrial machinery fostering nature.
(c) Acceptance of history.
(d) Refusal to let sentimental pastoralism lapse.

9. What was the American response to steam power in Britain?
(a) That it would never come to America.
(b) That it would corrupt the youth with dreams of travel.
(c) That it would provide them cheap power.
(d) That it would become their great strength.

10. What did Coxe contrast manufacturing with?
(a) Importation.
(b) The trades.
(c) Cottage industry.
(d) Self-reliance.

11. What role has literature played in the formation of the culture Marx describes in 'The Machine in the Garden'?
(a) Literature spurred the developments that shaped the landscape.
(b) Literature reflected the changes after they had happened.
(c) Literature inspired the urge to abandon farms for cities.
(d) Literature guided people as they settled the land.

12. What is the consequence of knowing nature, according to Twain's work?
(a) Losing familiarity with the whole.
(b) Feeling free of society.
(c) Knowing the wild spirit of nature.
(d) Knowing the deep inter-connectedness of things.

13. What does the Pequod symbolize in Melville's Moby Dick?
(a) Industry.
(b) Modern society.
(c) Spiritual degradation.
(d) Elemental nature.

14. What kinds of machines especially did Americans welcome at the end of the 18th century?
(a) Railroads.
(b) Machine tools.
(c) Telegraphs.
(d) Milling machines.

15. How did Emerson describe the relationship between the east and the west?
(a) The east's industry was destroying everything as it moved west.
(b) The east was bringing civilization to the wild west.
(c) The east's factories were a given, but they were balanced by the agrarian west.
(d) The east was producing literature, the west was producing science.

Short Answer Questions

1. What criticism did Carlyle make of American industrialism?

2. What conflict does Marx say was avoided as America expanded?

3. What still remains in every man, in Marx's account?

4. What do complex pastoralists recognize, in Marx's account?

5. What would manufacturing do for America, in Coxe's estimation?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 584 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample