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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Russian engineers and doctors ________ Western innovations.

2. How prevalent is National Ketman?

3. Chapter 2 opens with the picture of the Eastern communists looking to the West with what emotion/s?

4. According to Witkiewicz, what role does religion play in modern society?

5. Which Ketman asserts that men do not know how to rule themselves or properly distribute goods?

Short Essay Questions

1. .How did Alpha become a more religious writer when he turned away from Christianity?

2. Although only a couple presses were kept intact, in order to print Nazi propaganda, the underground writing flourished. Why?

3. How does national Ketman satisfy, as much as possible, the nationalist leanings in a man? Why is this an important Ketman?

4. Why does man find such joy in the "collective warmth" of which Milosz speaks?

5. Why, in the end, could Alpha make only one decision about joining the party?

6. How does Ketman create pride in the man who practices it?

7. Why does aesthetic Ketman flourish, when nothing of the sort is necessary in other countries?

8. What is communism's goal for the relationship between the present and the past?

9. Several times, Milosz describes bombed Warsaw as the cratered moon. How is this significant?

10. Why is the Ketman of revolutionary purity the most rare form of Ketman?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Though many human interactions are characterized by some degree of acting, the citizens of Soviet countries are forced to take this to an extreme. What does this tell us about the relationship between communist ideals and the individual? What should the role of government be in an individual's life? To what degree is this a perversion of how it should be? Or is this justified in the name of communist ideals?

Essay Topic 2

The West, in not taking advantage of every artist, wastes a huge amount of talent. Is the East's method better or worse? Is there an ideal system in which exceptional artists are appreciated without conforming to a particular method?

Essay Topic 3

Milosz called Beta's war stories terrifying because they were told simply and truthfully, almost brutally. How is it possible to tell such stories with so little emotion? To what degree is empathy a necessary quality of stories? Is it possible for the reader, removed by many decades and a culture, to experience a similar lack of sympathy?

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