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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 does the artist begin loaning books to Jaromil?
(a) He wants Jaromil to think that he is very smart.
(b) He wants to expand Jaromil's knowledge of art.
(c) So that Maman will be unafraid to read them.
(d) So that Jaromil will study in his spare time.

2. In Part III, Chapter 19, how does Jaromil get a fever?
(a) He visits the university girl when she is sick.
(b) He sits on a park bench with the university girl.
(c) He stands on the balcony of a girl's apartment in the snow.
(d) He takes a walk around the snowy town without wearing winter clothes.

3. What classic womanly question does the university girl ask Jaromil?
(a) If he will love her forever.
(b) How many kids he wants.
(c) If she looks better clothed or unclothed.
(d) If she looks fat in her dress.

4. What does Xavier do with the husband after his presence is discovered?
(a) Pushes the husband into the wardrobe and locks it.
(b) Beats him up so that he loses consciousness.
(c) Wrestles the husband to the ground and ties his hands.
(d) Pushes the husband out the three-story window.

5. During the Marxist debate which Jaromil attends, how does one person cause a distraction?
(a) Periodically sniffing a wilted lily.
(b) Tapping his foot against his chair leg.
(c) Elbowing the girl next to him whenever the speaker makes a good point.
(d) Reading random sections of Marx's writing.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who was Jaromil's first and greatest friend?

2. Why does Maman not want to go to the lake on vacation?

3. Why is the famous poet booed by the audience after he reads a poem?

4. Why does Maman take her husband's picture off the wall?

5. When do Jaromil's parents redecorate his room?

Short Essay Questions

1. When Jaromil is unable to make love to the university girl a second time, he pretends that there is another woman in his life. To what extent is this true?

2. Why is Jaromil thrilled at the thought of catching Magda, the family maid, in the bathtub? What does this say about his sexual development?

3. "It was sad, but beautiful, too: for a moment, Jaromil lost the feeling of being a mere child" (Part 3, Chapter 25, pg 150). What causes this moment? Will it last?

4. Maman and the engineer disagree about where Jaromil was conceived. Why is this an important debate?

5. While Jaromil is still a child, how does Maman prepare him for success as a writer? How does her preparation, paradoxically, also prepare him for failure?

6. How does Jaromil prepare for a date with a girl? How does his preparation actually make him completely unprepared for the date?

7. When the artist explains the red and brown painting to Maman, what is her response? How does this set the tone for the rest of their relationship?

8. Why does Xavier leave the woman behind at the end of Part 2?

9. At the debate in Part 3, Chapter 15, what arguments does Jaromil make about progress? Given his own life, how are these views ironic?

10. How does Kundera describe Jaromil's nursing? How does this set the tone for the future relationship between mother and son?

(see the answer keys)

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