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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Part 1: Chapter 12.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What are the biggest threats to an idealized vision of an individual or a country?
(a) Goals for the present government.
(b) Interactions between men and women.
(c) The memory of what was real in the past and a sense of imagination about future possibilities.
(d) The use of literature as a teaching tool.

2. What is the best definition of Nabokov's term "poshlust"?
(a) The use of reality to contrast with a system of barbaric ritual.
(b) The ability to remain heroic in the midst of banality and extreme brutality.
(c) Beauty in the midst of a brutal government regime.
(d) Empty rituals, false importance, and the reduction of reality to banality.

3. Why is Nabokov's "Invitation to a Beheading" the inspiration for Nafisi to form the study group?
(a) Nafisi is inspired by Nabokov's characters who conform to totalitarian regimes.
(b) Nabokov symbolizes the banality of Western thought.
(c) Nabokov wrote about conditions in post-revolutionary Iran.
(d) Nafisi sees connections between Nabokov's world and post-revolutionary Iran.

4. Why is Mashid jailed?
(a) Because people find out she was studying literature.
(b) Because she is associated with a dissident organization.
(c) Because she tells her parents she was translating Islamic texts into English.
(d) Because she steals flowers.

5. What does the class strive to do in their study of literature?
(a) Discover truths about beauty and human nature.
(b) Find answers about political ideology.
(c) Discover ways to question religious authorities.
(d) Learn how to be better writers.

Short Answer Questions

1. What type of author do the students seem most interested in studying?

2. How does Nafisi select her students for the small study group?

3. What would happen if the "Blood of God" militia saw a girl with nail polish or a strand of loose hair?

4. What does Nafisi see reflected in the mirror?

5. Why is Nafisi worried about her students?

(see the answer key)

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