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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is Nabokov's favorite Captain Mayne Reid novel?
(a) The Headless Horseman.
(b) Paul Bunyan.
(c) Bonnie and Clyde.
(d) Johnny Appleseed.

2. Why does Nabokov have secret spots?
(a) He finds them while writing poetry.
(b) He and his brother play in the secret spots.
(c) He has found them in pursuit of butterflies.
(d) He and Tamara find the secret spots.

3. In 1914, a sixteen-year-old Yuri visits the Nabokovs,and what does he produce?
(a) A cigarette case.
(b) A girlfriend.
(c) A book for Nabokov.
(d) A new invention.

4. 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 writing lessons.
(c) To give them a crash course in the Russian language.
(d) To give them mathematics lessons.

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

6. At what does Nabokov hint about Sergey?
(a) His possible homosexuality.
(b) His wish to emigrate to America.
(c) His interest in a girl.
(d) His desire to join the military.

7. What is Nabokov called in exile?
(a) A ymigry.
(b) A white Russian.
(c) A dirty Russian.
(d) An immigrant.

8. Why does Nabokov ride his bike each afternoon past the house of the family's head coachmen?
(a) He wants to see his prize stallion.
(b) He wants to learn how to drive a coach.
(c) The coachman's daughter, Polenka, watches him ride by.
(d) He needs to apologize to the coachman.

9. What is Vladimir elected to, which the Tsar dissolves?
(a) Russian Congress.
(b) Russian House of Burgesses.
(c) First Russian Senate.
(d) First Russian Parliament.

10. How does Sergei save the brothers from the Bolsheviks on the train?
(a) He convinces them he has typhus and that is why they are traveling alone in a locked compartment.
(b) He convinces the Bolsheviks that he has leprosy.
(c) He holds them out a window.
(d) He shoots at the Bolsheviks.

11. What do both Vladimir's writings on technical matters as well as philosophical have in common?
(a) They are both boring.
(b) They are filled with mistakes.
(c) They are inspiring.
(d) They have the same steadiness of thought.

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

13. How does Lett punish the boys?
(a) By forcing them to spar with him in the boxing ring.
(b) By giving them chores to do.
(c) By having them sit facing a corner.
(d) By telling their parents.

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

15. What types of tutors does Nabokov's father seem to intentionally choose?
(a) Those with experience working with aristocrat's children.
(b) Tutors with widely varying backgrounds and subjects of expertise.
(c) Those who attend college at Cambridge.
(d) Tutors with a background in Russian literature.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Vladimir do before hurrying young Nabokov along to school?

2. Why does she hand him a hand mirror?

3. What does Nabokov mean when he says poetry is positional?

4. Why is Lenski working as a tutor?

5. What is one thing he recalls suddenly becoming aware of while creating a poem?

(see the answer keys)

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