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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. Who is Ramin?

2. Why does Nafisi include the scene from "Invitation to a Beheading" in Chapter 22?

3. What do Nafisi and the magician share on their first meeting in his apartment?

4. What does Nafisi emphasize in the introductory course she teaches in Part 3?

5. In Part 3, Chapter 9, what author does Nafisi discuss with the magician?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What happens to Nafisi during her discussion with Mr. Bahri about wearing the veil?

4. What kind of man is Mr. Bahri?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Nafisi opens the book by asking the reader to imagine the secret class. She ends the book by wondering if she imagined the magician. Throughout the memoir, she mentions imagination in connection to the Iranian regime, to the authors of the fictional novels she teaches, and in the lives of herself and her students. What is the role of imagination in "Reading Lolita in Tehran"? How do each of those characters (the regime, the authors, Nafisi, her students) view imagination?

Essay Topic 2

Throughout the memoir, Nafisi returns to the issue of wearing the veil. Write an essay that addresses Nafisi's feelings about the veil. What does the veil represent for Nafisi personally? What does it represent for her professionally? How is the veil used as a symbol in this book?

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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