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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the phrase Kundera's father says to everything after he loses his memory?
(a) That's great.
(b) That's strange.
(c) Strange that it is true.
(d) Stranger things have happened.

2. What happens to Tamina eventually?
(a) She is killed by a young man.
(b) She marries Raphael.
(c) She becomes a mother to all the children.
(d) She has no memory of her prior life.

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

4. What do the poets do to the student's view of Kristyna?
(a) Wreck it.
(b) Restore it.
(c) They cast her in a better light.
(d) Undermine her.

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

6. What does Tamina find within herself?
(a) Anger like she has never known.
(b) Resilience.
(c) A tendency to wander mentally.
(d) A treasured silence.

7. How does the narrator describe Tamina?
(a) As on a raft looking back.
(b) As a lost soul whose shape is set in the past.
(c) As a empty husk.
(d) As a empty soul with no life.

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

9. What happens to Tamina after she sleeps with Hugo?
(a) She regains her voice and words.
(b) She is silent permanently.
(c) She tells him to leave her home and never come back.
(d) She cries.

10. What does the student debate with others?
(a) The might of capitalism to overthrow communism.
(b) The right of Russia to be in Hungary.
(c) Poetry and philosophical tenets.
(d) The political situation in Prague.

11. Why don't the student and Kristyna consummate their relationship?
(a) A lack of trust.
(b) Miscommunication.
(c) Because Kristyna is married.
(d) Because the student changes his mind again.

12. With whom does Kristyna sometimes have an affair?
(a) A pilot.
(b) An auto mechanic.
(c) A physics professor.
(d) A cook.

13. What is graphomania?
(a) A way of writing in cuneiform.
(b) The way they illustrate comics.
(c) The need for the perfect pen.
(d) The obsessive drive to write a book.

14. What happens to Tamina's case in the police files?
(a) It is eventually forgotten.
(b) It is expunged from the records.
(c) It is still being actively worked.
(d) It is solved.

15. How does Tamina spend her time?
(a) Recreating her husband and their time together.
(b) Working.
(c) Writing letters to get her husband released from prison.
(d) Taking care of her other children.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does Tamina work?

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

3. Where does Voltaire invite the student?

4. What do Kristyna and the student decide?

5. How is Tamina's apartment?

(see the answer keys)

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