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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The rest of the chapters are published separately, mainly by whom?
(a) The St. Petersburg Publishing House.
(b) The New York Times.
(c) The New Yorker.
(d) The Chicago Tribune.

2. What is seen as a dreaded event?
(a) Eating.
(b) Sleep.
(c) Speaking in public.
(d) Writing.

3. With what is the aristocratic Nabokov house stocked?
(a) German beer.
(b) English and French amenities.
(c) French literature.
(d) Russian antiques.

4. To what is Nabokov's mother quite sensitive?
(a) Perfume.
(b) Insults.
(c) Insect bites.
(d) Seemingly small events.

5. After his retirement, from what does Dimitri Nabokov begin to suffer?
(a) Heart disease.
(b) Arthritis.
(c) Dementia.
(d) Emphysema.

6. What does this thriving upper-class tourist industry offer?
(a) Vendors lining the beach and even servants in the change huts to assist in the removal of bathing suits.
(b) Gambling, live theatre, and music.
(c) Live performances, pubs and restaurants, and bicycles to rent.
(d) Expensive restaurants, street vendors, and swimming lessons.

7. How does Mr. Cummings influence Nabokov's scientific drawings of butterflies?
(a) He is Nabokov's botanist.
(b) He is Nabokov's drawing instructor.
(c) He is Nabokov's butterfly instructor.
(d) He is Nabokov's science instructor.

8. In exile in America, when a ranger or marshal spots him traipsing into the backwoods, net in hand, what is he asked?
(a) If he has a fishing license.
(b) Where his guide is.
(c) What the net is for.
(d) What he is doing in the woods.

9. How do the aristocrats confront the ocean waves?
(a) With the help of professional bathers.
(b) On a boat.
(c) By swimming in groups.
(d) By diving in.

10. When does Nabokov eventually discover a new species?
(a) At Cambridge.
(b) In Germany visiting his family.
(c) As a small boy in Russia.
(d) Not until he is an old man, living in exile in the United States.

11. Where do the children bathe?
(a) English portable tubs.
(b) French bathing tubs.
(c) The creek on the estate.
(d) Russian baths.

12. Where does Nabokov's mother trick Dimitri into believing he is still?
(a) In London.
(b) In Greece.
(c) In France.
(d) In Russia.

13. What does Nabokov's mother do on the trip to Paris?
(a) Talks to her husband.
(b) Sleeps.
(c) Plays games with her children.
(d) Watches as Russian, and then German, towns glide by.

14. To what does Nabokov compare existence?
(a) A rollercoaster ride.
(b) The sands in an hourglass.
(c) The seconds on a clock.
(d) A cradle rocking on the edge of an abyss.

15. Why, when Nabokov is a child, is he terrified of the dark?
(a) He thinks burglars will come into his room.
(b) He is afraid of monsters under his bed.
(c) He seems to lose himself in the pitch black.
(d) He is afraid his home will catch on fire.

Short Answer Questions

1. Mademoiselle threatens several times to leave. Why does she end up staying?

2. 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?

3. What has Nabokov always had difficulty doing?

4. What does Nabokov investigate about his family?

5. It is unusual for aristocrats in Russian to be hanged, and as a child, what does Nabokov call the trail through the woods on the estate where a previous owner had been hanged?

(see the answer keys)

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