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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. How many Americans lived on farms by the end of the 19th century?
(a) 75%.
(b) 99%.
(c) 40%.
(d) 90%.

3. What has happened to the ideal of the pastoral society, in Marx's opinion?
(a) It has become the rallying cry for opposition to industrial modernism.
(b) It has replaced the industrial utopia.
(c) It is a token belief.
(d) It is a governing principle.

4. What does Marx point out accompanied factories and progress in transportation?
(a) Longer lifespans.
(b) Worker abuses.
(c) Increased literacy.
(d) Decreased infant mortality rates.

5. What structures does Marx use as examples of how modern man mistreats nature?
(a) Roads and parking lots.
(b) Bridges and tunnels.
(c) Golf courses and cemeteries.
(d) Hospitals and nursing homes.

6. What does Marx say about man's hopes for nature?
(a) They are destructive.
(b) They are realistic.
(c) They are just a dream.
(d) They will create wars.

7. What is the relationship between industrialism and pastoralism?
(a) Cause and effect.
(b) Mutual reinforcement.
(c) Conflict.
(d) Mutual exclusivity.

8. What conclusion about technology does the narrator reach at the end of Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court?
(a) Progress changes the course of human nature.
(b) Nature ultimately conquered industrial man.
(c) Primitive human psychology is inescapable.
(d) Society's benefits do not outweigh its costs.

9. What dangers were writers warning about as America urbanized?
(a) Declining value of money.
(b) Loss of nature.
(c) Creation of a permanently poor underclass.
(d) Decline of morals.

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

11. How did Americans see westward expansion, in Marx's account?
(a) As a destruction of the landscape.
(b) As a form of corruption.
(c) As a form of progress.
(d) As a crime against Indians.

12. What did Emerson originally propose in his philosophy?
(a) Immersion in literature.
(b) Immersion in society.
(c) Immersion in science.
(d) Immersion in nature.

13. What does Ishmael symbolize, in Marx's interpretation of Moby Dick?
(a) The prophet to warn people against destroying nature.
(b) The victim of the whale's aggression.
(c) The middleman between nature and society.
(d) The representative of nature.

14. What contradiction does Marx say is Melville's true theme in Moby Dick?
(a) Industry provides for men and destroys them.
(b) The divine inspires and undermines man's projects.
(c) Man reveres nature but plunders it.
(d) Nature provides man with everything, and it kills him.

15. What skill did Twain idealize?
(a) The riverboat pilot's knowledge of the river.
(b) The steam locomotive engineer's control over the train.
(c) The engineer's ability to bridge rivers.
(d) The Indian soldier's warfare.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who does Marx offer as examples of 'complex pastoralism' in America literature?

2. What is Marx's tone throughout 'The Machine in the Garden'?

3. How did nature continue to redeem individuals in pastoral ideology?

4. What did Coxe contrast manufacturing with?

5. What did Daniel Webster believe the railroad would do for America?

(see the answer keys)

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