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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why does Hugo take Tamina to the zoo?
(a) To teach her about drawing birds.
(b) To show her a new monkey species that was found.
(c) To impress her.
(d) To show her a new exhibit he had planned.

2. Who are two people Kundera blurs the historic moments of?
(a) Kundera and Clementis.
(b) Clementis and Gottwald.
(c) Mirek and Zdena.
(d) Kafta and Mirek.

3. What turns off the student about Kristyna when she arrives?
(a) Nothing; he is delighted with her.
(b) Her provincial appearance.
(c) Her obvious hero worship of him.
(d) Her loud voice.

4. Who is Bibi?
(a) A regular customer to the cafe.
(b) The owner of the cafe.
(c) A ballerina.
(d) Tamina's lover.

5. Who is Tamina?
(a) She is one of the two or three fictionalized characters that Kundera assumes are born every second on earth.
(b) We are never told anything about her.
(c) She is Kundera's second wife.
(d) She is a secondary character and a cousin to Kundera.

6. What is more valuable to Kristyna than her relationship with the student?
(a) The book with the inscription.
(b) Her memories of the Club meeting.
(c) Meeting great minds.
(d) The discussions she has with the student.

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

8. Who is Banaka?
(a) A local crime boss.
(b) Bibi's uncle.
(c) The foreman at the factory where Bibi works.
(d) A local novelist.

9. What does Tamina ask Bibi to get at Tamina's stepmother's house?
(a) Pictures of Tamina's daughter.
(b) Some of Tamina's clothes.
(c) A parcel.
(d) Pictures of Tamina's son.

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

11. When Kristyna arrives, where is the student?
(a) He is in prison for distributing propaganda against the state.
(b) In class with someone referred to as Voltaire.
(c) With a friend at a pub.
(d) He is in his apartment waiting for Kristyna.

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

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

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

15. Of what is Bibi convinced?
(a) She is going to die young.
(b) She is going to write a novel.
(c) She is going to be an actress.
(d) She is going to get to the United States.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does Voltaire invite the student?

2. What does Tamina find within herself?

3. How is Tamina's situation similar to her husband's when he was ill?

4. What happens to Tamina after she sleeps with Hugo?

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

(see the answer keys)

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