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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What happened for the first time during the June 18th affair?

2. What was Yue Daiyun's overriding reaction to her two years as a peasant worker?

3. What disillusioned Yue Daiyun on her trip to the Soviet Union?

4. Why were the peasants reluctant to accept the land that they were given during land reform?

5. What does it mean to "draw a line"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was unusual for Yue Daiyun about the National Day Celebration in 1963?

2. What is the difference between one who is an "alien class element" and one who is a "counter-revolutionary"?

3. Why was Yue Daiyun to be criticized while on maternity leave?

4. What attracted Yue Daiyun to Lao Tang?

5. What is the "theory of revolutionary inheritance"?

6. How did the peasants react to the decision to distribute work points evenly, with eight each day for women and ten per day for men?

7. In 1976, what did the students do to Yue Daiyun's home?

8. How was Yue Daiyun used during the Four Clean-Ups campaign in 1965?

9. What was the job of the sent-down cadres in the countryside?

10. Why did Yue Daiyun admire Tang Yongtong?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

During Yue Daiyun's time as a professor of literature during the Cultural Revolution, it was criminal to glorify "middle characters" in fiction. Middle characters are ordinary people with flaws as well as good characteristics. Analyze and evaluate the purpose for this decision and its effect on readers, according to Yue Daiyun.

Essay Topic 2

Parent-child relationships are an important theme in this memoir, as children were encouraged to distance themselves from the reactionary or intellectual thought patterns of their parents. As a young bride, Yue Daiyun draws such a line against her father-in-law, and she later regrets it. Her own children find it necessary to repudiate their parents. Analyze and evaluate the effects of this disjunction on family relationships.

Essay Topic 3

Several times in this memoir, people were urged to make a confession to things of which they did not believe themselves guilty. In your essay, evaluate the effect of this practice. Why did people make false confessions? What was the benefit? The cost?

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