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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. Russian engineers and doctors ________ Western innovations.
(a) Ignore.
(b) Sell.
(c) Copy.
(d) Anticipate.

2. Witkiewicz's book dealt solely with what aspect of society?
(a) Futuristic societies.
(b) Decay in society.
(c) Salvation for mankind.
(d) Decay in industrial abilities.

3. Art and literature of the party prove to the intellectual that what is true about the world?
(a) Things can be different if he works hard enough.
(b) Only the party can change things.
(c) Only Western influence can change things.
(d) Things cannot be different than they are.

4. What do the Party dialecticians assert about art?
(a) Individual art outside the party lines has no lasting value.
(b) The state only slightly moderates art.
(c) Poets may write what content they choose as long as it follows the same form.
(d) Individual art has intrinsic value.

5. During World War II, how did the nearness of death affect the Poles' lives?
(a) It destroyed all sense of shame.
(b) It made them ambivalent to the future.
(c) It created a daily thankfulness for life.
(d) It instilled terror.

Short Answer Questions

1. Milosz compares the Method to what animal?

2. In 1932, Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz wrote a book entitled what?

3. What event did Alpha and Milosz narrowly miss one day as they were returning from the train station?

4. By standards of the East, as compared to the West, how is anyone with talent treated?

5. As seen in Chapter 2, how does the poet of a communist country write?

Short Essay Questions

1. If an artist disagrees with the dialectical method, he debates the question with a panel of Party authorities and always, undoubtedly loses. Why is this so?

2. Is Ketman necessary to the citizen of the New Faith? Why?

3. What advantages does the Center gain with the idea of "cosmopolitanism"?

4. Although only a couple presses were kept intact, in order to print Nazi propaganda, the underground writing flourished. Why?

5. When the Nazis invaded Warsaw, every man quickly changed his view of the world. Rather than reporting a corpse lying in the gutter, he passes quietly on. What does this say about man's state of mind then?

6. What is historic fatalism and how does it affect even a man's most personal interactions?

7. Why, according to party policy, can there be no contradictions in the minds of Soviet citizens?

8. .How did Alpha become a more religious writer when he turned away from Christianity?

9. How does Alpha's hunger for purity and strong heroic characters prepare the way for the New Faith? Could he have gone any other way?

10. The pill takes away man's metaphysical concerns--why is this significant?

(see the answer keys)

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