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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 effect did the struggle sessions have on Lao Chen, the literature department head?

2. What effect did the Four Clean-Ups campaign have on Yue Daiyun's thinking?

3. What term was given to those whose parents were landlords?

4. What caused the famine in Zhaitang during the autumn of 1959?

5. Who were the first enemies of the Communists to be punished by being publicly paraded?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Why did the famine of 1959 change Yue Daiyun's opinion of the Communist Party?

3. What advice does Lao Wei give Yue Daiyun about survival in the countryside?

4. Why had Yue Daiyun's earlier visit to the Soviet Union been disillusioning?

5. Why was Yue Daiyun unworried about the criticism she was to face?

6. What was the rationale for sending Chinese literature students to work in the mines?

7. What were "middle characters"? Why were they considered unacceptable?

8. Why did Yue Dainyun feel worse on returning from the countryside in 1966 than she had when returning in 1960?

9. Why is the one-month birthday an important event in China?

10. What did Yue Daiyun see in Old Uncle that she had never seen among the intellectuals?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Analyze the difference between the "white and expert way" and the "red and expert way."

Essay Topic 2

A central argument among the shifting power groups in this memoir is the question of whether democracy is a tool to eventually establish communism, or communism is a tool leading to the eventual establishment of democracy. Discuss the meaning and differences between these two points of view.

Essay Topic 3

Landlords were the most vilified of any group described in this story. Why was their condemnation so universal? What happened to them? To their property?

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