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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In Chapter 8, Milosz explains that the totalitarian states places such emotional strain on its citizens that what occurs?
(a) They will cease to think for themselves.
(b) They cannot survive long as individuals.
(c) The strain itself determines their actions.
(d) The people cannot be responsible for their actions.

2. In light of Beta's poetry, how does Milosz treat the modern artist's potential?
(a) He can never know rest or inactivity.
(b) He follows the artistic traditions of former eras.
(c) He is condemned to inactivity.
(d) He works best without established equilibrium.

3. In Milosz's understanding, the class of the bourgeois is comprised of what people?
(a) Workers and peasants.
(b) Workers.
(c) Small merchants and craftsmen.
(d) National companies.

4. When man is faced with constant death and when life seems meaningless, how does dialectical materialism seem?
(a) Mathematical and calculating.
(b) Like a refuge.
(c) Mysterious and full of meaning.
(d) Useless and outmoded.

5. How were Gamma's interactions with people characterized?
(a) By his drive for power.
(b) With complete honesty.
(c) With deceit and artifice.
(d) By his loyalty to the party.

6. Delta would have fit well into what time period?
(a) Wandering jesters.
(b) Egyptian kings.
(c) Medieval monks.
(d) Roman gladiators.

7. As he got older, how did Gamma feel about his life?
(a) He had wasted his youth in service of the party.
(b) He had wasted his youth on reckless living.
(c) He had become too comfortable with his accomplishments.
(d) He had not devoted enough energy to the party.

8. Where did the man Gamma grow up?
(a) An eighteenth-century palace.
(b) The country.
(c) The city.
(d) A party member's home.

9. At a fairly young age, how did Beta die?
(a) By suicide.
(b) At the hands of the Nazis.
(c) By an unknown assassin.
(d) At the hands of the communists.

10. Because he believed in earthly salvation, what did Beta argue?
(a) History has no force in man's present struggles.
(b) Only man can bring about his own happiness.
(c) Promises of heavenly salvation are false.
(d) Anyone opposing mankind's happiness is evil.

11. According to Chapter 8, how does communism define the reactionary?
(a) Acts contrary to party principles.
(b) Refuses to agree wholeheartedly with the party.
(c) Reverts to the traditional way of thinking.
(d) Is incapable of seeing how everything is interdependent.

12. In a weekly magazine, Delta published short theater scenes under what title?
(a) Falangist.
(b) Solomon's Ball.
(c) Gray Goose.
(d) Green Goose.

13. How did Delta return to his wife in Poland?
(a) Completely sober.
(b) Without a single penny.
(c) With a girlfriend he'd brought from Brussels.
(d) With a girl he'd picked up at the Polish border.

14. What did Delta, in his enthusiasm, love?
(a) The words of intellectuals.
(b) The literary cafes.
(c) The whirlpool of human emotions.
(d) Crowds and festivals.

15. Often when Milosz sees women walking through the streets of Paris, what does he remember?
(a) A Polish girl brushing her hair.
(b) His dead wife.
(c) A Jewish girl shot while running for her life.
(d) An unknown girl run over by an SS truck.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why was Gamma's writing weak?

2. While living in exile, how did Delta feel?

3. When someone asked about his family and origins, how would Delta answer?

4. What happened when Beta's artistic talent moved to the furthest boundaries of communist dictates?

5. What was the title of Beta's first book?

(see the answer keys)

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