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The "Mother" Quiz

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  1. ___ is the mother of good luck.
    a. Diligence
    b. Experience
    c. Intelligence
    d. Arrogance

  2. ___ is the mother of wisdom.
    a. Diligence
    b. Experience
    c. Intelligence
    d. Necessity

  3. ___ is the mother of invention.
    a. Diligence
    b. Experience
    c. Intelligence
    d. Necessity

  4. He that would the ___ win, must with the mother first begin.
    a. battle
    b. argument
    c. lottery
    d. daughter

  5. "Like mother, like daughter" means ___.
    a. If you admire the mother you will also admire the daughter.
    b. Daughters tend to do the same things as their mothers.

  6. "Tied to one's mother's apron strings" means ___.
    a. A person likes cooking.
    b. A person has a fetish for his or her mother's clothing.
    c. A person is dependent on his or her mother.
    d. A person has very strict ideas about what is proper behavior.

  7. "Every mother's son (of someone)" means ___.
    a. Absolutely everyone with no exception
    b. Anyone who is underage
    c. All who are immature
    d. Anyone who is living at home

  8. "Old enough to be someone's mother" means ___.
    a. A person is as old as someone's parents (too old for a relationship).
    b. A person is old enough to have children.
    c. A person is well matched emotionally with another person.
    d. A person ought to act more mature.

  9. Children are the ___ that hold a mother to life. (Sophocles)
    a. stitches
    b. anchors
    c. pillars
    d. glue

  10. Every beetle is a gazelle in the ___ of its mother. (Moorish Proverb)
    a. mind
    b. view
    c. eyes
    d. heart

  11. A ___ son is the heaviness of its mother. (Bible, Proverbs)
    a. foolish
    b. friendly
    c. frank
    d. fiendish

  12. The ideal mother, like the ideal ___ is fiction.(Milton B. Sapirstein, Paradoxes of Everyday Life, 1955)
    a. house
    b. job
    c. marriage
    d. vacation

  13. A mother is glad to get the loveliest child ___. (Emerson)
    a. dressed
    b. ready
    c. home
    d. asleep

  14. No woman can call herself ___ unless she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be amother. (Margaret Sanger, Parade, Dec.1, 1963)
    a. happy
    b. open
    c. free
    d. modern

  15. What mother sings to the cradle goes all the way ___ to the coffin. (Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbsfrom Plymouth Pulpit, 1887)
    a. down
    b. after
    c. on
    d. in

  16. Who takes the child by the ___ takes the mother by the heart. (Danish Proverb)
    a. storm
    b. hand
    c. shirttails
    d. arm

  17. Men are what ___ mothers made them. (Emerson)
    a. some
    b. other
    c. their
    d. many

  18. Only mothers can think of the ___ because they give birth to it in their children. (Maxim Gorky)
    a. future
    b. past
    c. present
    d. possible

  19. Motherly love begins with oneness and ___ to separateness. (Erich Fromm)
    a. ends
    b. leads
    c. results
    d. depends

  20. A motherless son is a fish ___low water. (Burmese Proverb)
    a. out
    b. over
    c. in
    d. on

Copyright (C) 1998 by Donna Tatsuki (tatsuki@kobeuc.ac.jp)
This quiz is part of the HTML-Only Self-Study Quizzes which is part of Activities for ESL Students, a project by The Internet TESL Journal.