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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why do the students meet in Nafisi's apartment?

2. What is the best definition of Nabokov's term "poshlust"?

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

4. How does Nafisi structure the first class sessions?

5. What is the first assignment for the students in the study group?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Nafisi include Part 1, Chapter 12 in her memoir?

2. How is the generation of Nafisi's students different from the generation of Nafisi and her peers?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

On Nafisi's first day of teaching at the University of Tehran, she asks the students what fiction should accomplish. Using examples from the text, write an essay comparing and contrasting the answer from the perspective of one of the students in Nafisi's student class and the answer from the perspective of Mr. Bahri of Mr. Nyazi.

Essay Topic 2

Nafisi addresses disappearance and absence as a major theme in the book. Write an essay that examines the issues of disappearance and absence in the novels Nafisi teaches, in the lives of her students, and in Nafisi's own life, both personally and professionally.

Essay Topic 3

Women are central characters in Nafisi's text and in the texts that Nafisi chooses to teach. Early in the book, Nafisi present three types of women in "A Thousand and One Nights." Of those types, which best represents the majority of the women in the Iranian Republic? Which type represents Nafisi's students? Which type represents Nafisi?

(see the answer keys)

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