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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Other than his wife, what does Nabokov claim about his good friends?
(a) They are all writers.
(b) To have made no more than two good friends over a span of twenty years.
(c) They are artists and writers, like himself.
(d) He has many.

2. What fills Nabokov with surprise, while roller-skating?
(a) An older American girl comments on his excellent skating.
(b) His mother skates very well.
(c) Colette is also roller-skating.
(d) He is not very good.

3. Nabokov develops a fondness for what?
(a) Composing chess problems.
(b) Butterflies.
(c) Lawn tennis.
(d) Poetry.

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

5. On what does the rest of the family live?
(a) On an estate in Germany.
(b) On the sale of a handful of family jewels.
(c) On government assistance.
(d) His father's retirement check.

6. Who does Nabokov meet at the age of sixteen?
(a) His cousin, Yuri.
(b) A young girl named Tamara.
(c) A young girl named Colette.
(d) His youngest brother.

7. What precaution does Nabokov's father take?
(a) He sends them to the United States.
(b) He puts them in hiding in St. Petersburg.
(c) He sends his family to Crimea.
(d) He changes their last name

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

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

10. The boredom of the audience at these poetry performances is obvious to everyone but whom?
(a) Dmitri.
(b) Lenski.
(c) Max.
(d) Nabokov.

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

12. How does Nabokov's father die?
(a) He is assassinated in Berlin.
(b) He commits suicide in Paris.
(c) He has a heart attack in Paris.
(d) He has a stroke in Berlin.

13. Why do they hire the village schoolmaster, though he is not technically one of the family's regular tutors?
(a) To give them French lessons.
(b) To give them a crash course in the Russian language.
(c) To give them writing lessons.
(d) To give them mathematics lessons.

14. In 1904, who does Nabokov remember meeting for the first time?
(a) His sister.
(b) His youngest brother.
(c) His cousin.
(d) His uncle.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Once, upon returning from the park with a poem freshly in his mind, what does he do?

2. What does Vladimir continue to do while in exile in Berlin?

3. Why does Nabokov ride his bike each afternoon past the house of the family's head coachmen?

4. How would Nabokov spend hours?

5. What country does the family travel through on their way to London?

(see the answer keys)

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