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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who is their first spelling tutor?
(a) Ordo.
(b) Max.
(c) Oliver.
(d) Dmitri.

2. During this time, of what does Nabokov seem incapable?
(a) Failing as a writer.
(b) Having too many friends.
(c) Of getting married.
(d) A solid connection to any of the societies around him.

3. What is the purpose of the Constituent Assembly?
(a) To support the Soviets.
(b) To encourage Soviet control.
(c) Tries to limit the extent of Soviet control.
(d) To give power to the Soviets.

4. After Cambridge, how is Nabokov's life?
(a) A life of financial destitution and intellectual opulence.
(b) A middle-class life.
(c) A life of financial success and artistic destitution.
(d) A similar life to that in Russia.

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

6. Why does Max endear himself to the dogs?
(a) He loves dogs.
(b) He would like to own a kennel of his own some day.
(c) He is initially afraid of them, so he gives them treats, so they will stay calm.
(d) So they do not raise the alarm when he comes back from his late night trysts.

7. Who does Nabokov marry?
(a) Isabella.
(b) Yuria.
(c) Vyra.
(d) Colette.

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

9. What casts a cloud over the exiled Russian intelligentsia?
(a) Their inability to move to another European coutnry.
(b) Their inability to speak English.
(c) The inability to publish in their home country.
(d) Their inabiltiy to move to the United States.

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

11. Who finds himself surrounded by social elites whose view of the Revolution is, at least at first, far more positive than his own?
(a) Sergey.
(b) Yuri.
(c) Dmitri.
(d) Nabokov.

12. What does she tell him when he is finished reciting the poem?
(a) He should have it published.
(b) Studying butterflies is a better way to spend one's day.
(c) He should find another hobby.
(d) She proclaims it wonderful and beyond compare.

13. While he is writing a poem, to what is he prone?
(a) To wander aimlessly through the forest.
(b) To bounce ideas off his mother.
(c) To sing to himself.
(d) Long lapses of attention to the world around him.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. To where do the boys win scholarships?

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

4. Why does the relationship fizzle out?

5. What is Nabokov's favorite Captain Mayne Reid novel?

(see the answer keys)

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