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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What year is it when the book opens?
(a) 1968.
(b) 1918.
(c) 1928.
(d) 1948.

2. What happens to Mirek when he and Zdena break up?
(a) He marries someone else.
(b) Bad things.
(c) Nothing.
(d) Good things.

3. What do Market and Karel tell each other when they move out of his parents' home?
(a) They want to live as far away from his mother as possible.
(b) That it was a nightmare to live there.
(c) That his parents were so kind to let them stay there, they'd like to return the favor someday.
(d) That it was sad they had to move.

4. Where is Marketa's ten-year-old son on Easter?
(a) With his aunt.
(b) She has no son.
(c) At camp.
(d) Away.

5. In what is Mirek reveling?
(a) In the idea of leaving the country.
(b) In the money he manages to get from Zdena.
(c) In knowing now how to best blackmail Zdena.
(d) In his temporary freedom.

6. Who are Michelle and Gabrielle?
(a) Two women in Madame Raphael's support group.
(b) Two co-conspirators in Madame Raphael's political cell.
(c) Two students in Madame Raphael's class.
(d) Two cousins from Prague.

7. What might the person fired have lost?
(a) A means of making a living.
(b) Good political connections.
(c) A burgeoning career.
(d) A prime office location.

8. What was happening in 1948 in Kundera's life?
(a) He is involved in the political parties of his time and "danced in a ring."
(b) His wife dies in childbirth.
(c) He learns he has leukemia.
(d) He begins to doubt the efficacy of communism.

9. Why does Clementis give Gottwald a fur cap?
(a) To make him look like Marketa.
(b) To make him look ridiculous.
(c) His head is bare and it is very cold.
(d) To conceal who he is.

10. Why is Mirek driving to see Zdena?
(a) To give her a present.
(b) To kill her.
(c) To ask her to marry him.
(d) To retrieve some old love letters.

11. What does Karel do on the phone?
(a) Call a nursing home for his mother.
(b) Arrange another sexual liaison.
(c) Talk to Eva's husband.
(d) Talk to his publisher.

12. What does Kundera have the urge to do?
(a) To rape his former boss.
(b) To kidnap his former boss.
(c) To kill his former boss.
(d) Escape to another country.

13. What does Mama forget?
(a) To pack her pajamas.
(b) To bring her toothbrush.
(c) The last line of the poem.
(d) To cook the pasta.

14. Why is Mirek ashamed of Zdena?
(a) She has bad table manners.
(b) She is ugly.
(c) She is uneducated.
(d) She has a loud, grating voice.

15. What are Eva, Karel and Marketa doing when Mama is in her room?
(a) Drinking.
(b) Singing karaoke.
(c) Playing cards.
(d) Shooting darts.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who addresses the Czech people?

2. Where does Kundera remember a number of historical events happening?

3. What happens when Mirek leaves Zdena's place?

4. What does Mama start to doubt?

5. How do Karel and Eva conspire?

(see the answer keys)

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