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

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

3. In communist thought, where is there no division?
(a) Between man and woman.
(b) Between what man does and what he thinks.
(c) Between worker and peasant.
(d) Between man and society.

4. Why was Gamma's writing weak?
(a) Human emotion.
(b) Proper doctrine.
(c) Empathy.
(d) Previous success.

5. Why did Delta begin to write violently anti-Semitic poems?
(a) He cared more about his audience than about the content.
(b) He cared deeply about the political change going on around him.
(c) He had begun to think along those lines.
(d) The Communist Party commanded him to write them.

Short Answer Questions

1. In the context of Chapter 8, peasants are divided into three categories so that what happens?

2. Where did the man Gamma grow up?

3. Beta wrote poems characterized by what?

4. As Milosz witnessed, why was becoming a communist a difficult decision?

5. As Chapter 8 briefly explains, how does the State regard the propertied class?

Short Essay Questions

1. Delta, in wandering the roads in France, met people from many different nations. How did this universal migration prepare the way even more for communist rule?

2. In Chapter VIII, Milosz takes on the tone of a communist to describe the evils of the various classes. How is this more powerful than a mere description?

3. Rather than blaming these four men for the choices they made, Milosz says they were slaves to history. How is this true?

4. Nearly six years of Nazi rule had radically changed people's ideas of private property. Did this help or harm the communist idea of common property?

5. How was Delta's poetry some of the most insightful work being written at the time?

6. Milosz writes that Delta could not (or would not) distinguish between truth and fable, even in his personal life. Is this the kind of mind the Party would have wanted?

7. Milosz calls Beta's reaction to the concentration camp life sadistic. How is this true?

8. "Still, it was not easy to become a communist, for communism meant a complete revision of one's concepts of nationality " (pg. 147). How was this true?

9. How could Delta, who was not racist, write such violently anti-Semitic material?

10. How was Delta able to play the game that the center demanded of him--and be better at it?

(see the answer keys)

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