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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 did Lao Tang's mother send to augment his diet?

2. How did Nie Yuanzi attempt to flush out the 250 besieged Jinggang Mountain students?

3. What effect did Yue Daiyun believe the elimination of "middle characters" would have on student readers?

4. Why was Lao Tang shocked as he studied Lin Biao's life?

5. Why did Zhou Enlai not order the helicopter carrying Lin Biao's co-conspirators shot down?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did Yue Daiyun find it difficult to teach a course about the struggle between bourgeois and proletarian literary theory?

2. Why were members of the intellectual community resentful of Liang Xiao?

3. How did nine-year-old Tang Shuan help the Jinggang Mountain group?

4. Why did a smiling photo of Lao Tang get him in trouble?

5. What were the most emphatic new directives from Chairman Mao as the conflicts escalated?

6. Why were the department leaders angry with Yue Daiyun when they offered her the opportunity to assist with educational reforms on campus?

7. How was Tang Dan allowed as a child to help the Jinggang Mountain group?

8. Why had Lao Tang not left Liang Xiao?

9. How did the disputes between factions at the university resemble civil war?

10. What did the student Red Guards at Beida dispute about Nie Yuanzi's policies?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Write a brief explanatory history of the Gang of Four and the Cultural Revolution as seen through Yue Daiyun's eyes.

Essay Topic 3

What differences do you see between the administration of sanctions in China and in other countries? Who determines who is at fault? Who determines the punishment? What effect do those differences have on Yue Daiyun and her family?

(see the answer keys)

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