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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Fifty years of re-education within the party can change entire nations so that they become what?
(a) Sly and vicious.
(b) Fearful.
(c) Docile and obedient.
(d) Utterly subservient.

2. How does the Eastern communist regard everything from the West?
(a) With antipathy.
(b) With strong criticism.
(c) With loud enthusiasm.
(d) With deep confusion.

3. When a man looks to the West, why does he not have clear insight?
(a) His emotions interfere.
(b) The party center obscures the truth.
(c) Life in the East has drastically shaped his view.
(d) He cannot be realistic.

4. As explained in Chapter 1, if a man asks the questions to which the absurd leads him, he reaches what emotional state?
(a) Hatred of himself.
(b) Hatred of the proletariat.
(c) Despair for society.
(d) Hatred of the bourgeois.

5. According to Milosz, nations which have recently come under communist rule feel excitement at first, and then feel what emotion?
(a) Trepidation for their unknown future.
(b) That they've been lied to about the government.
(c) Sadness for the loss of their autonomy.
(d) That they've been caught in a trap like mice.

6. In order to kept his apartment and good political standing, the man practicing aesthetic Ketman is willing to do what?
(a) Make only the necessary sacrifices.
(b) Promote the party's interests at all costs.
(c) Make any sacrifice or compromise.
(d) Give up his first-born child.

7. As explained in Chapter 2, the party considers _________ one of the highest virtues.
(a) Silence.
(b) Informing.
(c) Restraint.
(d) Compliance.

8. Those who assert that their work is most important, rather than the ends and benefactors of the work, are following which Ketman?
(a) Aesthetic Ketman
(b) Sceptical Ketman
(c) Ethical Ketman.
(d) Professional Ketman.

9. Peasants, in Milosz's understanding, assert what about their lives?
(a) Communism is their only salvation.
(b) Feudalism is their only salvation.
(c) Change must come.
(d) They are perfectly happy with their lives.

10. According the Chapter 2, what does the Method emphasize about change?
(a) Stasis.
(b) Exercise of critical faculties.
(c) Fluidity of phenomena.
(d) Moderate, deliberate change.

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

12. Milosz asserts that the man of the New Faith has the greatest fear of what action?
(a) Thinking for others.
(b) Losing the capability to reason.
(c) Acting based on others' decisions.
(d) Thinking for himself.

13. The atmosphere in a collective society is one of what?
(a) Harmony and action.
(b) Strength and unhappiness.
(c) Solidarity and happiness.
(d) Usefulness and action.

14. In the eyes of the besieged Pole, what is the only poetry that will last?
(a) Poetry that is unquestionably real.
(b) Poetry that is most vivid to the reader.
(c) Poetry that is most amusing.
(d) Poetry that has most affected the writer.

15. Walking in the ruined city in 1945, what emotion did Alpha feel primarily?
(a) Confusion.
(b) Sadness.
(c) Anger.
(d) Despair.

Short Answer Questions

1. How do the Multi-Bing pills change a man?

2. Defining good and evil outside of party interests is what type of Ketman?

3. Why, as Chapter 2 explains, do Eastern communists look to the West?

4. In Chapter 4, once the Nazis took over a country, how did they treat the printing presses?

5. In Witkiewicz's novel, the characters ultimately become:

(see the answer keys)

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