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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 4.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Nabokov claim stems more from an ecological longing for the place of his birth, than in his family's loss of property and station?
(a) His anger toward the Bolsheviks.
(b) His anger toward the French.
(c) His anger toward the British.
(d) His anger toward the Germans.

2. Who are some of the ancestors on Nabokov's paternal, Russian side?
(a) A government leader, an opera singer, and Dmitri Nabokov, the surgeon.
(b) A lawyer, scientist, and Dmitri Nabokov, a well-known actor.
(c) An explorer, the sister of a prominent Decembrist, and Dmitri Nabokov, the author's grandfather, who served as Minister of Justice for eight years.
(d) A prominent Caholic cardinal, a physician, and Dmitri Nabokov, an inventor.

3. What properties do the Nabokovs own until the Russian revolution?
(a) Several large estates south of St. Petersburg.
(b) Several summer cottages on the Baltic Sea.
(c) A large estate in Moscow.
(d) A large estate in St. Petersburg.

4. Of what descent is Nabokov's mother?
(a) Aristocratic Swedish descent.
(b) Aristocratic German descent.
(c) Aristocratic Norwegian descent.
(d) Aristocratic English descent.

5. Soon, the string of nurses transforms into what?
(a) A string of teachers.
(b) A string of surgeons.
(c) A string of governesses.
(d) A string of doctors.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the first memory Nabokov drags from the darkness?

2. What is their mother's reaction when she sees that her children have opened the presents from their stockings early and poorly rewrapped them?

3. What would change throughout Nabokov's childhood, depending on the prevailing advice of the family's current medical consultant?

4. After his father's death, to where does Nabokov's widowed mother move?

5. What is the process by which Vladimir Nabokov writes "Speak, Memory?"

(see the answer key)

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