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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Alpha, the Moralist.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In Milosz's experience, how does a man change under communist rule?
(a) He gains new habits slowly and painfully.
(b) He sees the new rule as unnatural.
(c) He gains new habits quickly and asks no questions.
(d) He asks questions so he can understand the new government.

2. Alpha's pursuit of purity in his work was driven largely by what characteristic?
(a) Personal arrogance.
(b) Devotion to the church.
(c) Sense of personal purity.
(d) Jaded view of the world.

3. What event did Alpha and Milosz narrowly miss one day as they were returning from the train station?
(a) Being run over by a truck full of Jews bound for Auschwitz.
(b) Being searched by Nazi squads.
(c) Being captured in the first man-hunt for Auschwitz.
(d) The outbreak of a street fight.

4. Milosz admits that he has great admiration for what people or force?
(a) The impersonal forces of history.
(b) The philosophers who prepare the way for change.
(c) The people who bring about change.
(d) The people who fight evil.

5. In Chapter 4, once the Nazis took over a country, how did they treat the printing presses?
(a) Printing continued as normal.
(b) Almost nothing was printed in that country's language.
(c) They destroyed the printing presses and offices.
(d) They took over the presses to print large volumes of propaganda.

Short Answer Questions

1. Milosz explains that people who enter into the state feel what emotion?

2. In the eyes of the besieged Pole, what is the only poetry that will last?

3. Peasants, in Milosz's understanding, assert what about their lives?

4. Why did Alpha eventually become a communist?

5. Which Ketman asserts that men do not know how to rule themselves or properly distribute goods?

(see the answer key)

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