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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 necessary tool did the Beida students accuse the work team of failing to employ?

2. What challenging assignment was Yue Daiyun given upon her return to teaching?

3. How were ordinary people to be portrayed in literature considered appropriate during the Four Clean-Ups?

4. How does Lao Wei advise Yue Daiyun to deal with the cadres?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the message of Yue Daiyun's poem "To the Storm"?

2. How were the landlords treated by the local Communist Party committee?

3. Why did Yue Daiyun admire Tang Yongtong?

4. How did the newspaper articles during the Four Clean-Ups confuse Yue Daiyun?

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

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

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

8. What does it mean to "draw a line" between yourself and another person?

9. Why did Yue Daiyun decide not to object to being considered a rightist?

10. Where had the idea of parading enemies come from?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

During the time that is portrayed in this memoir, military and police power were placed in the hands of committees and groups - sometimes self-appointed, as the student groups were. In your essay, discuss the results of these shifts in power.

Essay Topic 2

Do you believe that Yue Daiyun's basic political philosophy changed greatly during the years she has described in her story? Give reasons, quotations, and examples to support your opinion.

Essay Topic 3

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.

(see the answer keys)

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