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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the narrator spend his time doing?
(a) Writing biographical notes.
(b) Working for a meal.
(c) Sleeping.
(d) Panhandling.

2. What does the narrator often have with himself?
(a) Long, imaginary conversations with his father.
(b) Long, imaginary conversations with Charlotte.
(c) Long, imaginary conversations with his mother.
(d) Confidence-building sessions.

3. What does Pashka take the narrator to observe?
(a) A prostitute having sex with soldiers.
(b) A calf being born.
(c) A student at the school making out with an older woman.
(d) A student at the school have sex with a prostitute.

4. What does the narrator invent in order to publish his book?
(a) A contact in the publishing business.
(b) Nothing.
(c) A home address.
(d) A translator.

5. Why must the narrator construct his stories three different ways?
(a) For his three different audiences.
(b) To tell the stories in such a way as to not get in trouble.
(c) To learn to be creative.
(d) He does not create stories in different ways.

6. About what does the narrator feel guilty?
(a) His mother's death.
(b) His father's death.
(c) His changed relationship with Charlotte.
(d) His sister having to leave.

7. What does a young girl dismantle and reassemble?
(a) A radio.
(b) A carburetor.
(c) A watch.
(d) A Klashnikov rifle.

8. Why does the narrator wander around France?
(a) For no reason.
(b) To visit several friends.
(c) To decide where he wants to buy a house.
(d) To write a travel book.

9. What confuses the narrator about Beria?
(a) How kindness make Beria more angry.
(b) How the baker loves to bake but not to eat.
(c) How he seems almost happy that the narrator's mother has died.
(d) The narrator's response to Beria's heinous crimes.

10. How long does the narrator spend in France after leaving his grandmother for the last time?
(a) 10 years.
(b) A few weeks.
(c) 20 years.
(d) 1 year.

11. What does the narrator consider when he runs out of money?
(a) Joining the French Foreign Legion.
(b) Writing his grandmother to ask for money.
(c) Suicide.
(d) Working for his best friend's father.

12. What story does the narrator tell about a young French boy?
(a) The boy saves the king's life.
(b) The boy is sentenced to death.
(c) The boy won a world-wide contest.
(d) The boy almost kills the king despite all the guards.

13. What news does the narrator receive from Saranza?
(a) Very little.
(b) Continuous post cards.
(c) He never hears from Saranza again in his life.
(d) Almost weekly letters.

14. Why is the young woman given a few months of respite?
(a) She is ill with Tuberculosis.
(b) She knows the head of the KGB in that area.
(c) She is the mistress of the captain of the police.
(d) She gives birth.

15. Where is there an open-air dance floor?
(a) In Moscow's central park.
(b) In the stadium.
(c) In the town square.
(d) At the Mountain of Joy.

Short Answer Questions

1. What shatters when Pashka touches it?

2. Who is the woman in the shapka?

3. Where has the narrator's older sister gone?

4. What does the narrator do that makes him feel comforted?

5. What happens one day to Pashka?

(see the answer keys)

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