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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. What symbol does Nafisi think of when she thinks of Lolita?
(a) A butterfly pinned to the wall.
(b) A school report card.
(c) A helpless little girl.
(d) A school uniform.

2. How did Nafisi learn of her father's arrest?
(a) Her father told her many years later.
(b) She was pulled out of her sophomore class in Switzerland.
(c) She heard her mother telling her sister.
(d) The government came to her house.

3. What type of author do the students seem most interested in studying?
(a) "Revolutionary" authors who are tied to current political ideologies.
(b) Authors who show the benefits of a religious society.
(c) Authors who have female characters with strong opinions.
(d) "Non-revolutionary" authors such as Joyce, Nabokov, Woolf, and Austin.

4. What happens to the class after they read "Madame Bovary"?
(a) The class agrees to meet in a local cafe.
(b) Some of the girls decide to leave the study group.
(c) They have a sense of shared intimacy.
(d) The girls begin to take charge of the discussion.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. At the beginning of Chapter 16, what are Nafisi and her male acquaintance discussing?

2. When the intruders enter Nafisi's house, what happens?

3. What does Nafisi see reflected in the mirror?

4. Why does Nafisi remind the students of Nabokov?

5. Why do the intruders want access to Nafisi's house?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why do Mitra and the other students find the Thursday study group to be significant?

2. Why does Nafisi agree with Nabokov's statement that every great novel is a fairy tale?

3. How is Professor X's method of teaching literature different than Nafisi's method of teaching literature?

4. Why does Nafisi refer to two photographs in the first chapter?

5. Why does Nafisi ask her children about their memories of Iran?

6. Why does Nassrin say she has been caught in the middle of tradition and change her entire life?

7. According to Nafisi, what is life like for a "normal Iranian citizen"?

8. In Part 1, Chapter 18, the room where the class meets becomes a character. How does Nafisi describe the room?

9. What is the purpose of the dreams that Nafisi describes?

10. Why does Nafisi believe the scene where Humbert picked up Lolita at summer camp is the heart of Nabokov's novel?

(see the answer keys)

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