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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. Who did the Empress refer to as "heavenly maidens floating in the air?"
(a) Her attendants.
(b) Young women at a wedding.
(c) Her daughters.
(d) Little girls at a festival.

2. What color robe did Korechika wear when he came to report to His Majesty while the ladies sat discussing the painting on a sliding screen?
(a) Golden yellow.
(b) Cherry-colored.
(c) Black.
(d) Wistaria.

3. In the section titled "Once When I Was Passing," what color were the inside blinds on the palm-leaf carriage Shonagon described?
(a) Green.
(b) Orange.
(c) Blue.
(d) Purple.

4. What was wrong with the appearance of the escorts that Shonagon saw while visiting the palace to see the horses on the first day of the First Month?
(a) Their faces were improperly powdered.
(b) Their hair was unkempt.
(c) They were too tall.
(d) Their feet were too large.

5. What did Lord Akinobu say he had picked with his own hands?
(a) Fern sprouts.
(b) Cherries.
(c) Seaweed.
(d) Rice.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the name of the kotonashi shrub mean?

2. What did Shonagon say that women at the palace did not do as other women did?

3. In the section titled "Once When Her Majesty Was Residing" what did the ladies-in-waiting build in the garden?

4. In what month did the peach trees come into bloom?

5. What was the right season to meet one's lover?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did Shonagon say a wickerwork carriage should move swiftly?

2. Why didn't Shonagon like the husbands of nurse-maids?

3. Why did Shonagon say that young herbs peeking through the snow were unexpected near the Palace?

4. Why did Shonagon say that there was nothing worse than a poorly dressed ox carriage driver?

5. Why did Shonagon offer a gardener a reward to see to it that the snow mountain did not melt until after the fifteenth of the First Month?

6. What made Shonagon come into the Empress's apartments after she left because the screens with the paintings of Hell frightened her?

7. The herbal balls hung on the pillars of the Empress' palace during the Festival of the Fifth Month were supposed to last until the next Chrysanthemum Festival. Why didn't they last until then?

8. In "Smaller Shirakawa," why did Shonagon and her companions leave the morning service early?

9. Why didn't the women write their hototogisu poems after going on an outing to hear them sing?

10. Why did the women hit one another with gruel sticks?

(see the answer keys)

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