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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Why do students dance in a ring?
(a) It is a figure of speech; they don't actually dance.
(b) For flexibility and exercise.
(c) To celebrate a variety of things.
(d) So no one is behind any one else for safety.

2. What do the police find?
(a) A baggie of drugs.
(b) Some illegal weapons.
(c) Nothing.
(d) The letters that Mirek kept between colleagues and friends.

3. With what does Mirek profess to be entranced as far as Zdena is concerned?
(a) Her artistic abilities.
(b) Her wealth.
(c) Her political connections.
(d) Her mind.

4. What does Mama forget?
(a) To bring her toothbrush.
(b) To pack her pajamas.
(c) To cook the pasta.
(d) The last line of the poem.

5. Where does Eva meet Marketa?
(a) At college.
(b) At a ski resort.
(c) In a spa.
(d) At a political rally.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Mirek being followed?

2. What do Market and Karel tell each other when they move out of his parents' home?

3. Why does Marketa begin to write her mother-in-law?

4. Who wrote RHINOCEROS?

5. What do the members of the ring do?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why do you think Marketa asks Eva to pretend she is Marketa's cousin?

2. What is the difference between how Mama views memory versus how Karel and Marketa do?

3. What is the larger meaning of the letters which Mirek is supposedly seeking to have back?

4. How does Kundera's loss of his friends in the dancing circle affect him later?

5. What is it that Marketa does not know about Eva and do you think Marketa would care at this point if she learned this?

6. What is the meaning of laughter in part 3?

7. Where does Mirek stop and why is that problematic?

8. What does Mirek think of Zdena when they first meet and then become lovers?

9. What happens that embarrasses Mama?

10. What does this Kundera say about our collective past?

(see the answer keys)

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