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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 12.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Sergei save the brothers from the Bolsheviks on the train?
(a) He shoots at the Bolsheviks.
(b) He convinces them he has typhus and that is why they are traveling alone in a locked compartment.
(c) He convinces the Bolsheviks that he has leprosy.
(d) He holds them out a window.

2. What does Nabokov say they had lost that winter in St. Petersburg?
(a) Their "true identities."
(b) Their "sylvan security."
(c) Their "lovers' nest."
(d) Their "secret hideaway."

3. What types of tutors does Nabokov's father seem to intentionally choose?
(a) Tutors with widely varying backgrounds and subjects of expertise.
(b) Tutors with a background in Russian literature.
(c) Those who attend college at Cambridge.
(d) Those with experience working with aristocrat's children.

4. Who dies young of a heart ailment?
(a) A Ukrainian mathematician.
(b) A Greek spelling tutor.
(c) The schoolmaster.
(d) A Polish tutor.

5. Why does the relationship fizzle out?
(a) Tamara moves back to St. Petersburg and gets a job.
(b) They no longer have anything in common.
(c) Nabokov's father finds out.
(d) Tamara is tired of him.

Short Answer Questions

1. Though he is an excellent teacher to the Nabokov boys, what does Lenski find difficult?

2. What is the response to Nabokov's published book of poems?

3. Why do they hire the village schoolmaster, though he is not technically one of the family's regular tutors?

4. Who rents a modest summer cottage called a dachka?

5. How does Mr. Cummings influence Nabokov's scientific drawings of butterflies?

(see the answer key)

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