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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. How does Mr. Bahir become president of the Muslim Students' Association at the University of Tehran?
(a) He creates the organization and names himself leader.
(b) He works his way up through patience and dedication.
(c) He makes persuasive speeches that draw attention to his leadership qualities.
(d) He uses force to win the position.

2. In Part 4, Chapter 1, what does Sanaz announce she is going to do?
(a) Go to Turkey and see a man.
(b) Become a teacher.
(c) Stop coming to the study club.
(d) Go to America and enroll in a university.

3. In Part 2, Chapter 12, why does Nafisi decide to cancel class?
(a) Because her students are not coming to class, and she doesn't want to teach to an empty room.
(b) So she can demonstrate against the government taking over the university.
(c) So she can go to a meeting to protest the government's requirement that women wear a veil in public.
(d) So she can have more time to read books.

4. Who is Mr. Bahir?
(a) A man executed for charges of being too Westernized.
(b) The owner of her favorite bookstore.
(c) One of Nafisi's students.
(d) The department chair of the Language Department at the University of Tehran.

5. Why does Nafisi state it is important to introduce her students to the works of Saul Bellow?
(a) Because Bellow provides an aesthetic counterpoint to the limitations of Austen's novels.
(b) Because she believes her students should read more American authors.
(c) Because Bellow shows the problems and fears of the West, and Nafisi believes her students look at the West uncritically.
(d) Because Bellow presents Western society as not being decadent, and Nafisi believes her students need to see Western culture as not being decadent.

Short Answer Questions

1. What game does Nafisi play when she begins wearing a black robe?

2. In Part 2, Chapter 14, what do the police do to the women at the protest meeting?

3. In Part 3, Chapter 14, which former student comes to see Nafisi?

4. Who does Nafisi believe is an example of a National Writer?

5. In Part 4, Chapter 24, why do the girls have to sit in the back room of the restaurant?

Short Essay Questions

1. What are the similarities between the lives of the characters in Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" and the lives of Nafisi's students?

2. What does the Islamist Iranian regime have in common with the theme of Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby"?

3. Why does the magician tell Nafisi she should return to teaching?

4. What does Nafisi mean by her statement that she "left Iran, but Iran did not leave me?"

5. What are the similarities between Sanaz's experience in jail and the experience of Cincinnatus in "Invitation to a Beheading"? What are the differences between their experiences?

6. Why does Nafisi refer to the concert she attends as a parody of the real thing?

7. Why does Nafisi describe herself as becoming irrelevant?

8. Why does Nafisi get upset with students in her class at Alzahrah University (Part 3, Chapter 25)?

9. What is the impact of Iran's war with Iraq?

10. Why is Nafisi conflicted about returning to full-time teaching?

(see the answer keys)

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