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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In Chapter 20, Nafisi tells a story about what event that happened to Manna and Nima?
(a) They began to become more orthodox.
(b) They were kicked out of the study group.
(c) They were expelled from the university.
(d) They realized that literature is not as important as survival.

2. Chapter 12 takes place during which season?
(a) Spring.
(b) Winter.
(c) Summer.
(d) Fall.

3. What does Nassrin's mother teach her daughter?
(a) French.
(b) English.
(c) Arabic.
(d) German.

4. What object becomes popular in Iran?
(a) A satellite dish.
(b) A mirror.
(c) Foreign language novels.
(d) The Great Gatsby.

5. What scene opens Chapter 12?
(a) The members of the class arriving at Nafisi's house.
(b) Nafisi teaching a class at the University.
(c) The class sitting around a table in Nafisi's apartment.
(d) Nafisi search for books in a bookstore.

6. What does Nafisi consider to be the first lesson in democracy?
(a) All individuals have the right to dress as they please.
(b) All individuals have the right to vote for their own leaders.
(c) All individuals have the right to freedom of speech.
(d) All individuals have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

7. What is the first work Nafisi and her students in the study group discuss?
(a) "Nabokov."
(b) "Invitation to a Beheading."
(c) "Lolita."
(d) "A Thousand and One Nights."

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

9. How does Nafisi select her students for the small study group?
(a) She chooses students who can afford to pay her on a regular basis.
(b) She chooses students who dislike the liberal qualities of the university.
(c) She chooses students who are loners or outsiders.
(d) She chooses students who earn good grades in all their classes.

10. Who was Nafisi's father?
(a) The youngest mayor of Tehran in pre-revolutionary Iran.
(b) A famous author.
(c) A troubled businessman.
(d) The director of a high school in Switzerland.

11. Where do the intruders to Nafisi's house go once they are in her house?
(a) Into the library.
(b) To the rear balcony.
(c) To the front balcony.
(d) To the kitchen.

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

13. Why do the intruders want access to Nafisi's house?
(a) She is able to provide them with safety.
(b) They think she is selling and using drugs.
(c) They want to see what was happening on her neighbor's property.
(d) They are searching for contraband.

14. Why is Negar upset?
(a) Her friendship bracelet has been taken away at school.
(b) She is not allowed to join Nafisi's literature discussions.
(c) She is being taken to jail for insubordination.
(d) She is not allowed to console a friend who had been poorly treated at school.

15. In "Lolita," how does Humbert attempt to gain the reader's sympathy?
(a) By making Lolita seem highly desirable.
(b) By making Lolita seem undesirable.
(c) By always talking in the first person.
(d) By blaming himself for all of Lolita's problems.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Nafisi structure the first class sessions?

2. Why do Ministry of Education officials ask the faculty at Nafisi's school if they thought they were in Switzerland?

3. How does Nafisi's acquaintance describe her students?

4. What is the main point of Chapter 12?

5. Why does Nafisi remind the students of Nabokov?

(see the answer keys)

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