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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What has Nabokov always had difficulty doing?
(a) Speaking in public.
(b) Eating.
(c) Sleeping.
(d) Writing.

2. How does Mademoiselle provide Vladimir with an extra hour or two out of the darkness?
(a) The light from her lamp gives a little light to his room.
(b) She leaves a candle lit by his bed.
(c) She allows him to fall asleep in her room.
(d) He sits with him while he falls asleep.

3. Soon, the string of nurses transforms into what?
(a) A string of governesses.
(b) A string of surgeons.
(c) A string of doctors.
(d) A string of teachers.

4. What does Nabokov call the process of using both the English and Russian translations of "Speak, Memory" to shape the current work?
(a) Re-Englishing.
(b) Redoing.
(c) Rewriting.
(d) Reediting.

5. How does Nabokov open his autobiography?
(a) With an examination of his early childhood.
(b) With a short story about the birth of his son.
(c) With a short review of Russian history.
(d) With a short meditation on the periods of inexistence before birth and after death.

Short Answer Questions

1. For whom is young Vladimir mistaken?

2. During one such trip in the summer of 1909, who does young Nabokov meet?

3. To whom does Nabokov feel the strongest bond of kinship?

4. What does Nabokov investigate about his family?

5. What are two events that Nabokov remembers watching outside his mother's window?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is Nabokov's experience at Cambridge?

2. Describe Nabokov's encounters with his cousin, Yuri.

3. What jobs does Nabokov's father hold throughout his career?

4. What is Nabokov's life like after leaving Cambridge?

5. What evidence from the text shows that Nabokov is beginning to have an interest in girls?

6. Describe Nabokov's brother, Sergey.

7. What evidence is there showing that Nabokov and Tamara's relationship is not as innocent as his parents may think it is.

8. He also had several art instructors. Who are they and what does he learn from them?

9. How does young Nabokov react to rumor that his father has challenged someone to a duel?

10. How does Nabokov begin this final chapter?

(see the answer keys)

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