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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. Nassrin describes herself as being in the middle of what for her whole life?
(a) In the middle of insubordination and obedience.
(b) In the middle of tradition and change.
(c) In the middle of safety and danger.
(d) In the middle of fiction and reality.

2. What secret does Nassrin tell Nafisi?
(a) She had been sexually abused by her youngest uncle.
(b) She was leaving for America.
(c) She had been married and divorced.
(d) She had left her family to work for an Islamist student group.

3. According to Nafisi, how is the character of Lolita like Nafisi's students?
(a) Lolita and Nafisi's students are both stuck in the past, unable to accept present conditions.
(b) Lolita and Nafisi's students both exhibit characteristics of heroism in dealing with their past.
(c) Lolita and Nafisi's students are perfect images of the ideal woman in a totalitarian regime.
(d) Lolita and Nafisi's students are props in someone else's quest to find the perfect image.

4. What is the first assignment for the students in the study group?
(a) To relax and enjoy reading.
(b) To analyze the types of women found in a piece of literature.
(c) To remember what Nafisi taught in her university classes.
(d) To create a secret language using invented words.

5. At the beginning of Chapter 18, what does Nafisi ask the reader to imagine?
(a) They are at the university.
(b) They are standing on a street in Tehran.
(c) They are walking down a leafy path.
(d) They are inside her apartment.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What are students at Nafisi's school regularly asked to do?

3. How did Nafisi learn of her father's arrest?

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

5. How does Nabokov's character Cincinnatus C. become a hero?

Short Essay Questions

1. How do the university officials react to Nafisi before and after her resignation?

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

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

4. What happens to disrupt the class discussion in Chapter 17?

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

6. What is the similarity between Lolita's past and the past of Nafisi's students?

7. In Chapter 2, why does Nafisi describe the first meeting of the study group in present tense instead of past tense?

8. Why does Nafisi describe the three types of women portrayed in "A Thousand and One Nights"?

9. What is the significance of the green gate Nafisi mentions in Chapter 9?

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

(see the answer keys)

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