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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why does Sergey end up in a concentration camp?
(a) He is captured by the Nazis as a POW.
(b) Due to his outspoken opposition to the regime.
(c) He humiliated a high-ranking official.
(d) He is Jewish.

2. What does the revolution do to most of the Russian writers and artists?
(a) Increases their fame.
(b) Gives them subjects for their work.
(c) Sends them into exile.
(d) Hires them to write about the revolution.

3. Vladimir is raised by his own share of governesses and tutors but where does he go at the age of 13?
(a) Poly Preparatory.
(b) The Gymnasium.
(c) Berkshire Boys Academy.
(d) St. Petersburg Academy.

4. What does Nabokov remember about his father's remarkable writing ability?
(a) He could spell any word.
(b) He has beautiful handwriting.
(c) He could write sentence after sentence without correction.
(d) He is very poetic.

5. Why does Nabokov have secret spots?
(a) He finds them while writing poetry.
(b) He has found them in pursuit of butterflies.
(c) He and Tamara find the secret spots.
(d) He and his brother play in the secret spots.

6. After Cambridge, how is Nabokov's life?
(a) A life of financial success and artistic destitution.
(b) A life of financial destitution and intellectual opulence.
(c) A similar life to that in Russia.
(d) A middle-class life.

7. While he is writing a poem, to what is he prone?
(a) To bounce ideas off his mother.
(b) Long lapses of attention to the world around him.
(c) To wander aimlessly through the forest.
(d) To sing to himself.

8. What does Nabokov say they had lost that winter in St. Petersburg?
(a) Their "true identities."
(b) Their "secret hideaway."
(c) Their "lovers' nest."
(d) Their "sylvan security."

9. What does Vladimir do before hurrying young Nabokov along to school?
(a) He has him take a bath.
(b) He checks his school work.
(c) He makes sure he eats breakfast.
(d) He bends down to kiss Nabokov.

10. His other brother, Sergey, is only a year younger than Nabokov. The two are raised together, but what makes them different?
(a) They have disparate interests.
(b) They have different hair color.
(c) They have different fathers.
(d) They have different tutors.

11. Why does Nabokov feel exiled in Crimea, a Russian territory?
(a) The environment is so foreign.
(b) He does not have his family with him.
(c) He misses his butterflies.
(d) He misses Tamara.

12. How does Lett punish the boys?
(a) By giving them chores to do.
(b) By forcing them to spar with him in the boxing ring.
(c) By telling their parents.
(d) By having them sit facing a corner.

13. What is Nabokov called in exile?
(a) A ymigry.
(b) An immigrant.
(c) A white Russian.
(d) A dirty Russian.

14. In 1910, what do the Nabokov brothers acquire?
(a) A new nanny.
(b) A dog.
(c) Teeth braces.
(d) A new estate.

15. What is the last Nabokov hears of Lenski?
(a) He is working as an actor in London.
(b) He is scrapping by, selling painted seashells on the Riviera in France.
(c) He is a professor at the University of Paris.
(d) He owns a restaurant in Dublin.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who dies young of a heart ailment?

2. When does Nabokov begin to write poetry?

3. Why is the relationship between Kirill, the younger brother, and Nabokov more like that of distant friends?

4. What is Lenski's idea for the use of Magic-Lantern Projections?

5. Why does she hand him a hand mirror?

(see the answer keys)

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