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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How long before this book was written did Europeans arrive in Southern Rhodesia?
(a) 23 years.
(b) 54 years.
(c) 34 years.
(d) 103 years.

2. What was the difference between African huts and English huts?
(a) English huts had windows.
(b) African huts were two-story.
(c) African huts were made of straw.
(d) English huts were much larger.

3. What remained unaffected by the Lessings' existence for 20 years?
(a) The trees.
(b) The wildcats.
(c) The bush.
(d) The natives.

4. In Chapter 3, which of the following does Lessing describe as her first memory?
(a) Her father, towering above her on a horse.
(b) Her father returning from war.
(c) An image of the great house in Persia.
(d) An image of the farm in Southern Rhodesia.

5. How many adults lived in the Persian house while Lessing was growing up?
(a) Four.
(b) Two.
(c) Three.
(d) One.

6. Which of the following organizations asked Lessing to write a play in the 1950's?
(a) The Shakespeare Theater Company.
(b) The Liverpool Theater Company.
(c) The Royal Theater Company.
(d) The BBC.

7. Which of the following historic examples does Lessing use to support her claims about human nature?
(a) The Holocaust.
(b) The Reformation.
(c) The Crusades.
(d) The Renaissance.

8. Why did Lessing not like the clothes that her mother had made for her?
(a) Because her mother had poor taste in clothing design.
(b) Because her mother was a poor seamstress.
(c) Because her mother always insisted on making clothing that was too big.
(d) Because her mother always made her clothes look too youthful.

9. In Chapter 2, what is one thing that Lessing says the writer must have in order to begin to write about his/her life?
(a) Free time.
(b) Copious emotional space.
(c) Perspective.
(d) Tedious, rhetorical questions.

10. What stove brand did Lessing's family use?
(a) Smith & Son's.
(b) Carron Dover.
(c) McVeagh's.
(d) Liberty's.

11. According to Lessing, what happens to women as time passes?
(a) Women assert themselves as powerful people.
(b) Women are dropped from memory, then history.
(c) Women become more significant to a culture's public culture.
(d) Women fade into the domestic sphere.

12. After returning to England, where did Lessing's family settle?
(a) In Persia.
(b) In the East End.
(c) In Bloomsbury.
(d) In Southern Rhodesia.

13. Where did Lessing's family live before they found property?
(a) In Johannesburg.
(b) In London.
(c) In Lilfordia.
(d) In Kent.

14. What year did Lessing leave Southern Rhodesia?
(a) 1945.
(b) 1919.
(c) 1934.
(d) 1949.

15. Which company offered loans to the farmers in Lessing's region?
(a) The British National Bank.
(b) Land Bank.
(c) Southern Rhodesian Farming Association.
(d) The National Bank of Southern Rhodesia.

Short Answer Questions

1. With whom did Lessing board as a child?

2. According to Lessing, what is the most intense form of hatred?

3. Which of the following does Lessing blame for the distrust that 20th Century people have in their governments?

4. When did Lessing experiment with drugs?

5. Where did Lessing's father work after he was discharged from the Army?

(see the answer keys)

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