Test

                G.A. Ingersoll

 

Part One: Word Problems

 

Instructions:  You have thirty minutes for this section.  Record your answers legibly in the space provided.  To be eligible for partial credit, be sure to show all of your work.

 

A)    Leonard walks down aisle five at Price Chopper.  He is eighty-six years old.  He wears a size thirteen shoe.  He puts the following items into the basket of his shopping cart: three cans of split pea soup, three cans of tomato soup, one can of chicken noodle soup.  The price of each can is more than twice what it was four decades ago.  Already in his cart are two boxes of oyster crackers (buy one get one free) and a package of all-beef hot dogs, for which he has a coupon for thirty-five cents.  When his rife Rosa was dying of breast caner, she made him swear to eat at least on hot meal a day.  Rosa died three years ago this Sunday.  Allowing for holidays with his married niece and the occasional church supper, how many cans of soup has Leonard consumed during this time period?

 

B)    John and Linda meet at an AA meeting, John is twenty-three years old, and has been sober one year, three weeks, and two days.  He lives in a rented rehearsal space, where he practices classical guitar and writes songs about isolation and longing.  Linda is twenty-two years old, and has been clean forty-five days.  She lives in a halfway house, where she practices not killing herself and writes a recovery journal.  He pursues her with melancholy poetry about beauty and sin, death and salvation.  They become lovers, against the advice of her support group.  They share a mutual kindness, an appreciation for modern European novelists, and a restlessness that each hopes will be satiated by enough restaurant food.  John’s depression deepens, although he is taking sixty milligrams daily of a popular antidepressant.  Soon he can only lie on his bed and cry.  He refuses to see anyone but Linda.  After six weeks of this Linda breaks it off, fearing for her own stability.  Six months later, John is dead of a heroin overdose.  What should Linda say to his parent at the funeral?

 

C)    Margaret’s conscious death anxiety is such that she spends a total of thirty minutes daily obsessed with thoughts of dying prematurely.  It has been shown that stress and anxiety contribute to heart disease, and heart disease is an up-and-comer as a killer of women.  By how many years will Margaret’s life be shortened by her fear?

 

D)    Prudence is thirty-four.  She has had sex with twenty-one men and three women.  After being celibate for three years, she meets Larry and a romance begins to develop.  Larry is thirty-seven.  One night he proposes that, things going the way he thinks they’re going between them, they talk about their sexual histories.  Larry confesses to having slept with three women, one of whom is married.  She tells him that she has slept with three men.  Larry is uncomfortable with this number, especially since Prudence is younger than he is.  She amends it, saying that one was just heavy petting.  Given Prudence’s reflexive need for approval and Larry’s clear ideas of how things should be, what percentage of the time will Prudence be inhibited in bed with Larry, and consequently fake orgasm to ease his pride?

 

Part Two: Matching

 

Instructions: You have fifteen minutes for this section.  Provide matches to the words in the left hand column.  Some of these words may have more than one match, so be sure to choose the best answer.  Some of the words on the right may be used more than once, and some not at all.

 

                        A. Panic                      1. Trouble

                        B. Routine                   2. Normalize

                        C. Lucid                      3. Soothe

                        D. Potential                 4. Television

                        E. Rivalry                    5. Grief

                        F. Prescription             6. Minimize

                        G. Isolation                 7. Touch

                        H. Hunger                   8. Alert

                        I. Shame                      9. Imbalance

                        J. Ambition                 10. Ache

                        K. Comfort                 11. Compulsion

                        L. Methadone             12. Compliance

                        M. Prayer                    13. Maladaptive

 

Part Three: Short Answer

 

Instructions:  You have five minutes.  Complete the statements by inserting the correct words or phrases in the parentheses.

 

  1. ( ) makes the world go ‘round.
  2. Life is but a ( ).
  3. It is ( ) fault.
  4. People are ( ).
  5. I wish I had never ( ).

 

Part Four: Essay

 

Instructions:  You have thirty minutes for this section.  Using the method or rational argumentation, answer each of the following questions and defend your position.

 

  1. What is the genesis of pathology?
  2. Why do you belong here?
  3. Can you reconcile your desires with the needs of other people?
  4. Assign a point value to each of your personal values.  Determine which of these you can live without, and why.

 

Extra Credit

 

Fully explain the ways in which you are wrong.