View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How is Vevers described?

2. What are the sounds in the middle of the night?

3. What form of communications does Ginzburg learn?

4. What is the criminal offense of which Ginzburg is now accused?

5. Who agonizes over the hearing on Ginzburg?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Ginzburg think things have been straightened out and what happens to throw her back into the midst of the purge?

2. Who is Ginzburg's first cellmate at Black Lake?

3. What does Ira ask Tsarevsky to do as she and others are being transferred and what does his willingness to do so portend?

4. What is the "Conveyor Belt" interrogation method and how is it used on Ginzburg?

5. What does Alexandra Alexandrovna advise Ginzburg?

6. What happens after Ginzburg is given a summation of her indictments?

7. What do Ginzburg and her husband decide to do for the school holidays and what does she say about the people who are at the same vacation spot?

8. Describe the interrogation of Ginzburg by Livanov.

9. To where is Ginzburg's case referred, and what is significant about that fact?

10. Describe the situation that occurs concerning Carola Heintschke.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Ginzburg's frustration over failing to prove her innocence increases to anger over the hypocrisy and corrupt nature of the hearings. The charges multiply against her. Suspicions, rumors, and false accusations are rippling throughout Soviet Russia, and as a result, no charges are being taken lightly. Ginzburg's charges now carry the weight of criminal offense.

1. Discuss how frustration might turn to anger in almost any situation. Use examples from Journey Into the Whirlwind and your own life to support your response.

2. What do you think the corruption of the hearings says about the government at the time? Use examples from Journey Into the Whirlwind and your own life to support your response.

3. Discuss the effects that suspicions, rumors, and false accusations might have on a society. Use examples from Journey Into the Whirlwind and your own life to support your response.

Essay Topic 2

Readers learn that Kirov's assassin was a Communist. This fills Ginzburg with a sense of foreboding. It also demonstrates that the government does not have complete control over its citizens, because the assassin is a Communist. It a Communist assassinates another Communist, it further implies that there is no such thing as a loyal Communist any longer. Since a Communist has assassinated another Communist, the government is now weeding through Party members to determine loyalty.

1. Discuss the idea that if a communist kills a communist official that means that there could be other communists who are not loyal to the government. Use examples from Journey Into the Whirlwind and your own life to support your response.

2. Discuss what you think about the way Stalin responded to Kirov's death. Use examples from Journey Into the Whirlwind and your own life to support your response.

3. Discuss why the statement: it further implies that there is no such thing as a loyal Communist any longer, is an example of black and white, absolute type thinking. Use examples from Journey Into the Whirlwind and your own life to support your response.

Essay Topic 3

Stalin's regime, in conjunction with the frailties of the Communist system, seek to stamp out even perceived opposition to their control. They fear a popular uprising, similar to the uprising they led years before against Czar Nicholas. And in order to maintain power, and continue to instill fear in their people, they continue to apply weight to the people. Apathetic and disinterested Communists are libeled for not denouncing their lesser fellow citizens.

1. Discuss why totalitarian governments are prone to worry about opposition. Use examples from Journey Into the Whirlwind and your own life to support your response.

2. Discuss the ways in which a government can maintain power by the use of fear. Use examples from Journey Into the Whirlwind and your own life to support your response.

3. Explain how requiring citizens to denounce other citizens created the actual situation that Stalin feared. Use examples from Journey Into the Whirlwind and your own life to support your response.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,238 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample