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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who is Kristyna?
(a) A friend of the author's.
(b) An elderly babushka.
(c) A nun who teachers Kundera.
(d) A 30-year-old woman who is married to a butcher.

2. What does Husak desire?
(a) To defect to Great Britain.
(b) To imprison Mirek.
(c) To take over the country.
(d) To kill Kundera.

3. Why is Tamina thought to be a good listener?
(a) She does not interrupt others with stories about herself.
(b) She nods constantly.
(c) She always seems to understand what someone is saying.
(d) She looks people straight in the eye.

4. What do Kristyna and the person she meets do?
(a) Have an emotional affair.
(b) Argues about Kristyna moving to London.
(c) Tell each other all about her life over the past twenty years.
(d) Get to know each other.

5. What do Kristyna and the student decide?
(a) To travel to Italy.
(b) To not see each other again because of her husband.
(c) To marry.
(d) To meet in the city on a particular weekend.

6. What is Kristyna to the student?
(a) A good person with whom to discuss poetry and art.
(b) A potential wife.
(c) Nothing.
(d) Like a Band-aid, soothing his ego.

7. Where does Tamina work?
(a) As a secretary to the Minister of Justice.
(b) As a nanny to one of the big Communist Bosses.
(c) As a waitress at a cafe.
(d) We are not told.

8. Who does Kristyna meet one day?
(a) A man who offers her a chance to act on stage.
(b) Her biological mother.
(c) A student on vacation.
(d) Her sister who had been kidnapped years ago.

9. Where is the boat with the boy who rows?
(a) In a field of corn.
(b) Docked on the bay.
(c) Tied to a bridge at the riverbank.
(d) At the shore of a lake.

10. What does Tamina try to recreate?
(a) The scene where her husband is arrested.
(b) A safe home for the children.
(c) The notebooks filled with their past and love letters or even his face.
(d) The last day of her husband's life.

11. To what does the student manipulate Kristyna into agreeing?
(a) To go to bed with him.
(b) To his going to the Writer's Club meeting.
(c) To return that same day back to her home.
(d) To getting her own motel room.

12. How does the student spend the evening?
(a) In the presence of great minds.
(b) Sleeping at a friend's house.
(c) Carousing with friends.
(d) In the arms of a prostitute.

13. What does litost mean?
(a) A state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery.
(b) A toast to misery.
(c) The least weight of all.
(d) A toast to life.

14. What is Tamina not doing?
(a) Staying in touch with her husband in prison.
(b) Taking care of herself.
(c) Thinking of her children.
(d) Trying to create a present or future for herself.

15. How is Tamina's apartment?
(a) Neat and organized.
(b) In shambles.
(c) Completely empty.
(d) Cluttered but clean.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does the student settle into litost?

2. What is more valuable to Kristyna than her relationship with the student?

3. Where do Kristyna and a student she meets agree to reunite?

4. Who is Tamina?

5. What does Tamina do when the boy gets tired?

(see the answer keys)

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