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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. What does Nafisi notice is missing from the walls at the university?

2. What is the relationship between Nafisi and her first husband?

3. What project is Nassrin working on?

4. What is Mina's job?

5. What is Hizbollah?

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. Nafisi first mentions the magician in Part 1, Chapter 10. Why does she wait until Part 2, Chapter 20, to describe him more fully?

3. Why does a university staff member describe the Ayatollah's funeral as an event?

4. What does Nafisi mean when she says that the real day of the Ayatollah's death has not yet occurred?

5. Why does Nafisi focus on Azin's painted fingernails?

6. What does Nafisi do during her early years as a professor at the University of Tehran?

7. Why does Nafisi describe herself as becoming irrelevant?

8. What does it mean to be complicit in one's own crimes?

9. How does Nafisi react to the increase in protests, demonstrations, and violence associated with the revolution?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Nafisi presents several male students as passionate about the values of the Islamist Republic of Iran. In what ways are Mr. Bahri, Mr. Nyazi, and Mr. Ghomi similar? In what ways are they different? Which one of those students is portrayed as being in closest agreement with the regime? What evidence supports your choice?

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

Nafisi opens and closes the book with images and accounts of the students in her secret class. This creates a satisfying conclusion and cyclic treatment in the book. What other examples of cyclic treatment are evident in the book? Choose 2 examples and write an essay illustrating how Nafisi uses cyclic treatment throughout the book.

(see the answer keys)

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