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By: UPROAR Admin · Last updated: November 22nd, 2025
UPROAR – Constructive Criticism Quizzes

Why We’re Using These Quizzes

These quizzes aren’t here to test recall — they’re here to help us practice the actual function of Constructive Criticism as the book defines it: a method for transforming our thinking, our relationships, and our organizing culture. Legion wrote this handbook out of concrete organizing experience — in a time when repression, burnout, and internal conflict were breaking groups apart — to offer a structured way to struggle with each other without reproducing the violence and individualism of this society.

Criticism/self-criticism in this handbook is not just an interpersonal “communication skill,” but a political tool for sorting out the oppressive ideas we’ve internalized, strengthening unity through principled struggle, and grounding our actions in a shared, material understanding of what advances the movement.

Because the handbook roots its guidelines in dialectical materialism — things changing through contradiction, the need to distinguish subjective judgments from concrete observations, the importance of internal commitment over coercion, and the responsibility we share to remake ourselves as we remake the world — these quizzes help us slow down and check whether we’re absorbing those foundations. They highlight the distinctions the text insists on: observation vs. inference, feeling vs. thought, want vs. demand, unity vs. avoidance, contradiction vs. personality.

Think of them as a structured pause: a way to sharpen the lenses the book is trying to give us before we step into group practice on December 1 and December 8. They’re a tool for preparing ourselves to engage criticism the way Legion describes — as a collective process of clarifying ideas, strengthening unity, and transforming the habits we inherited from an oppressive society.

Study resources:
PDF download of Constructive Criticism: https://foreignlanguages.press/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/S24-Constructive-Criticism-7th-Printing.pdf
Audiobook (YouTube):
Printable PDF of these study guide questions: https://drive.proton.me/urls/1BX7NPRAHC#0vinYWuwXiyQ

Use them however you need: as calibration, as reflection, as practice for speaking concretely and listening dialectically. Their purpose is the same as the book’s — to help us change.

Constructive Criticism Quizzes

Week One Quiz
Week Two Quiz

Week One: Foundations & Guideline 0 (Pages 7–43)

Introductory note, Introduction, dialectical materialism, and Guideline 0 (“Good Intentions”).

1. In the Introduction, Legion says learning criticism is a “survival skill.” What is the main reason given for this?
2. In the story about the Cambodia anti-war meeting, what most disturbed Legion as she left the meeting?
3. In Part One, one key goal of criticism/self-criticism inside organizations is to:
4. Looking at a problem through dialectical materialism, as the handbook suggests, means:
5. Guideline 0 (“Good Intentions”) says we should begin from which assumption when we criticize comrades?

Vocabulary Match (Week One)

Match each term to the correct definition letter (A–E).

Definitions:
A. A view that explains people mainly through morals, willpower, or inner traits instead of material conditions
B. A systematic process of examining one’s own role in problems and changing based on criticism
C. The marks that class position leaves on our habits, feelings, and ways of thinking
D. The inner tensions in a person, group, or situation that drive change
E. A method of understanding the world by focusing on contradictions rooted in material conditions and struggle

1. Idealism
2. Self-criticism
3. “Brand of a class”
Your Score: 0/8

Week Two: Guidelines 1–7 (Pages 45–105)

Guidelines for giving and receiving criticism (1–7), with examples and exercises from organizing life.

1. Guideline 1 (“Be Concrete”) says criticism should be based on:
2. Which of the following examples matches Guideline 1’s idea of “being concrete”?
3. Guideline 2 (“Describe Your Feelings”) encourages us to:
4. Guideline 3 (“Name Change”) asks us to include what element in our criticism?
5. Guideline 4 (“Explain Purpose”) is about:
6. When receiving criticism, Guideline 5 (“Paraphrase”) suggests we should:
7. Guideline 6 (“Empathize”) is about:

Vocabulary Match (Week Two)

Match each term to the correct definition letter (A–E).

Definitions:
A. To describe clearly what you hope will happen differently next time
B. To restate someone’s criticism in your own words to confirm understanding
C. An emotional reaction (shutting down, arguing, deflecting) that blocks learning from criticism
D. To offer recognition of the other person’s effort, care, or commitment
E. Based in observable words or actions, not abstract judgments about character

1. Concrete
2. Paraphrase
3. Defensiveness
Your Score: 0/10

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