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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Marketa do for the Easter weekend?
(a) Invites her mother-in-law to visit.
(b) Goes to visit her mother-in-law.
(c) Goes to church for the first time in many years.
(d) Goes to Paris.

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

3. What is revealed?
(a) Kundera's secret position as an editor of the political magazine.
(b) The corruption of the current regime.
(c) The hypocricy of the dancers.
(d) The plan to invade a neighboring country.

4. What does Marketa not know about Eva and Karel?
(a) That they plan to eventually marry.
(b) That Eva wants Karel to encourage Marketa to leave him for her.
(c) That they are both in love with a third woman.
(d) That they know each other before Marketa meets Eva.

5. Why do Michelle and Gabrielle break out in laughter?
(a) They figure out the personal meaning of the play.
(b) Michelle just told Gabrielle a hilarious joke.
(c) They think the political ideas espoused in the cell are sometimes ridiculous.
(d) They can't imagine Madame Raphael in bed with her husband.

Short Answer Questions

1. To what year does the story next flash forward?

2. What will happen to the record of Clementis' life?

3. What happens to Madame Raphael, Michelle and Gabrielle?

4. Where is Marketa's ten-year-old son on Easter?

5. Who is discussing the play "Rhinoceros" ?

Short Essay Questions

1. What situation in Kundera's personal past does he discuss after writing about laughter?

2. What happens when Mirek arrives back home and how is this somewhat ironic?

3. What is the larger meaning of the letters which Mirek is supposedly seeking to have back?

4. Where does Mirek stop and why is that problematic?

5. What does Marketa contemplate doing with Eva near the end of the chapter?

6. Why does Mirek want his old love letters back from Zdena and do you think his goal is possible?

7. What happens when Karel receives a phone call and how is the outcome ironic?

8. How would the relationship between Marketa and Karel change if Marketa cheats on him with Eva and her husband?

9. What is the meaning of laughter in part 3?

10. How does Kundera's loss of his friends in the dancing circle affect him later?

(see the answer keys)

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