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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Sergey do during WWII?
(a) He is employed as a translator in Berlin.
(b) He is an SS soldier.
(c) He builds weaponry.
(d) He emigrates to the United States and joins the Army.

2. What does Vladimir study at St. Petersburg University?
(a) Art.
(b) Law.
(c) Music.
(d) Medicine.

3. What tutor looks like the French actor Max Linder?
(a) A Greek spelling teacher.
(b) A polish medical student.
(c) A Russian literature tutor.
(d) A graduate student.

4. What is Lenski's idea for the use of Magic-Lantern Projections?
(a) To create shadow puppets.
(b) To illustrate petic works with the use of slides.
(c) To create special effects on the wall.
(d) To play in the light from the lanterns.

5. What do Yuri and Nabokov invent?
(a) A tool to make household chores easier.
(b) A game.
(c) A weapon.
(d) A way to distract siblings.

6. Why is the relationship between Kirill, the younger brother, and Nabokov more like that of distant friends?
(a) Due to the large gap in their ages.
(b) They have such different personalities.
(c) Due to Kirill being given up for adoption.
(d) They do not get along.

7. What is publication like outside of Russia?
(a) A well-paying, satisfying career.
(b) Not as good as in Russia.
(c) Often insufficiently lucrative to provide a comfortable existence.
(d) Better than in the United States.

8. What does the headstrong Yuri in later life introduce to Nabokov?
(a) Poetry.
(b) The French language.
(c) The Wild West fiction of Captain Mayne Reid.
(d) Butterflies.

9. What country does the family travel through on their way to London?
(a) France.
(b) Italy.
(c) Greece.
(d) Belgium.

10. What does Nabokov remember about his father's remarkable writing ability?
(a) He has beautiful handwriting.
(b) He could spell any word.
(c) He could write sentence after sentence without correction.
(d) He is very poetic.

11. How does she respond to his poem?
(a) She does not think it is very good.
(b) She sits patiently and then asks a lot of questions.
(c) She is hardly paying attention to the poem.
(d) She sits listening with tears in her eyes.

12. What does Nabokov confess about Yuri and himself?
(a) They know nothing about America.
(b) The devastation of war is new to them.
(c) The "slums of sex" were unknown to both of them.
(d) They wish they had girlfriends.

13. Though he is an excellent teacher to the Nabokov boys, what does Lenski find difficult?
(a) Teaching the boys mathematics.
(b) His own studies.
(c) Teaching the boys to be well-behaved.
(d) Making his lessons interesting.

14. When does Nabokov begin to write poetry?
(a) Around 1924.
(b) Around 1914.
(c) Around 1934.
(d) Around 1904.

15. How is Nabokov's life at Cambridge, compared to his former existence?
(a) Very similar.
(b) Wonderful.
(c) Different, but good.
(d) Dismal.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does he do with a poem before he writes it down?

2. During this time, of what does Nabokov seem incapable?

3. How does Nabokov describe the poet?

4. Why does Nabokov have secret spots?

5. Who dies young of a heart ailment?

(see the answer keys)

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