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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. As Beta scornfully realized, how could someone have power in Poland?
(a) Overcome the Nazis.
(b) Follow the procedures established by the Polish government.
(c) Seize it by force.
(d) Destroy all Polish underground resistance.

2. Why are workers told that it is a crime to strike?
(a) It has drastic negative effects on the entire nation.
(b) The highest goal of state factories is efficiency.
(c) They are working for the state, which is to say for themselves.
(d) It is not in the best interests of the state.

3. In cycles that lasted several days, what would Delta do?
(a) Walk the streets.
(b) Take drugs.
(c) Write his poems.
(d) Drink alcohol.

4. After coming to power, in 1945, the Party recognized that the best way to control a nation is through what force?
(a) Spies and informers.
(b) Brute force.
(c) Parades and speeches.
(d) The written and spoken word.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Delta would have fit well into what time period?

2. How much time did Beta spend in the concentration camp Auschwitz?

3. As he got older, how did Gamma feel about his life?

4. As detailed in Chapter 6, what was the first maxim of the communist rule as it established power in a newly-conquered country?

5. Chapter 6 opens with a picture of Vilna, which is a city of __________ .

Short Essay Questions

1. Gamma did not even try to save his family when they were deported to Siberia. How is this a vivid example of the communist attitude toward individual lives?

2. Milosz opens Chapter VI with a description of Vilna as it existed during his childhood. Is this simply to introduce Gamma or is there another reason?

3. Why is Gamma called "the slave of history"? Whose interests does he serve?

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

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

6. 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?

7. How were Beta's stories a fitting insight into his nihilist worldview?

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

10. How were Beta and the people of his generation fallen into dark hopelessness?

(see the answer keys)

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