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

2. Why do the police go to Tamina's apartment?
(a) She does not show up for work.
(b) She calls the police because a derelict is bothering her.
(c) She calls in and her boss can hear a gunshot in the background.
(d) She has been meeting with a politically banned group.

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

4. What do Tamina and her husband leave at her Stepmother's house?
(a) Their daughter.
(b) All Tamina and her husband's love letters.
(c) Some political propaganda.
(d) Their son.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. About what does Husak make a speech?

2. Why is Tamina thought to be a good listener?

3. What do the poets do to the student's view of Kristyna?

4. What does Tamina think the ostriches are doing?

5. What does Kristyna ask the student to get her?

Short Essay Questions

1. How are the Czechs and litost related in Kundera's opinion?

2. Why do you think Kundera blurs historical moments?

3. What does Tamina ask Bibi to get for her in Prague and why does Tamina make the request?

4. What is the relationship of litost to romantic love in general and specifically in relation to Kristyna and the student?

5. What does Tamina do shortly after her husband dies and what might this foreshadow?

6. To what do Kristyna and the student agree and what is the outcome? What does the student's evaluation of Kristyna tell the reader?

7. What is the meaning of the word litost?

8. Who is Kristyna?

9. What character's life is again addressed in part 6 and how is her life dismissed in a sense?

10. Who does Kristyna meet and what attracts her to this person?

(see the answer keys)

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