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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. How is Tamina's situation similar to her husband's when he was ill?
(a) He was physically ill and she is mentally ill.
(b) Neither of them understood the situation.
(c) He died in a hospital with no privacy and her new living arrangements mimic this setting.
(d) There is no similarity.

3. About what does Husak make a speech?
(a) The importance of children to our future.
(b) The importance of a purity of heart to our future.
(c) The importance of commerce to our future.
(d) The importance of justice to our future

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

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

6. Why do the children on Tamina's team begin to win games?
(a) Because of Tamina's size and advanced dextrity.
(b) They are the smartest.
(c) They beat up anyone who might start to win.
(d) They cheat.

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

8. What is the only picture Tamina has of her husband?
(a) A baby picture.
(b) She has no pictures of him.
(c) A picture of him when he is 12.
(d) His passport photo.

9. In what status does Tamina leave Bohemia?
(a) Pending citizenship.
(b) As a non-citizen.
(c) Legally.
(d) Illegally.

10. How do the children on Tamina's team reward her?
(a) By rowing her back to the mainland.
(b) By letting her have her own room.
(c) By raping her.
(d) They do not reward her.

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

12. 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.

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

14. Where do Kristyna and a student she meets agree to reunite?
(a) In Poland.
(b) In Prague.
(c) In Budapest.
(d) At his apartment in the city.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. How is the student recognized?

2. What does the student debate with others?

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

4. Why does Hugo take Tamina to the zoo?

5. What does Tamina do one day?

(see the answer keys)

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