View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Nabokov open his autobiography?
(a) With a short meditation on the periods of inexistence before birth and after death.
(b) With an examination of his early childhood.
(c) With a short story about the birth of his son.
(d) With a short review of Russian history.

2. What is one thing he recalls suddenly becoming aware of while creating a poem?
(a) He's standing in the rain.
(b) He has forgotten part of the poem.
(c) His father is speaking to him.
(d) His mother is removing a plate of untouched food from in front of him.

3. What does Vladimir continue to do while in exile in Berlin?
(a) Work for the Russian government.
(b) Take his family to France for the summers.
(c) Own property in Russia.
(d) Write about human rights.

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

5. Why is Nabokov disappointed to hear that one of his tutors marries a peasant girl?
(a) He thinks he should have married his aunt.
(b) He thinks of his tutors as people devoted to their art or profession.
(c) He thinks he should have married one of his sisters.
(d) He thinks he should have married someone in a higher social class.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Mademoiselle provide Vladimir with an extra hour or two out of the darkness?

2. What is Nabokov's favorite medium?

3. How does she respond to his poem?

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

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

(see the answer key)

This section contains 394 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample