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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What aspect of her childhood determined that Lessing would never separate herself from politics?
(a) Listening to the BBC each day.
(b) Listening to the way that her parents treated the servants.
(c) Listening to her parents' impossible ideas.
(d) Listening to the ideas of the African workers whom her family employed.

2. Which group was beginning to infiltrate Salisbury?
(a) The Nazis.
(b) The U.S. Army.
(c) The RAF.
(d) The British Navy.

3. Where did Kurt claim his real education occurred?
(a) Auschwitz.
(b) Cafes in Vienna.
(c) Cambridge.
(d) World War II.

4. What did Lessing do while she spent her days with John?
(a) Lessing pined for simpler days.
(b) Lessing planned her escape from domestic life.
(c) Lessing wrote poems in her mind.
(d) Lessing entertained wild fantasies.

5. What did Lessing's landlady think about her stream of visitors?
(a) She did not mind, but wondered what Lessing's mother thought.
(b) She did not notice the stream of visitors.
(c) She did not approve.
(d) She applauded her independence.

6. How does Lessing describe the letters that she received from her mother?
(a) Refreshing.
(b) Docile.
(c) Furious.
(d) Frantic.

7. What affliction struck all members of Lessing's family except her?
(a) Deafness.
(b) Cholera.
(c) Blindness.
(d) Malaria.

8. Where did Lessing first experience a social event in which she and black people were treated equally?
(a) London.
(b) Johannesburg.
(c) Capetown.
(d) Old Umtali.

9. Why did Lessing's mother rush from the farm to her home?
(a) Lessing's mother wanted to end her marriage to Frank.
(b) Lessing's mother had heard rumors of an impending divorce.
(c) Lessing's mother wanted to warn her about having too many children too close together.
(d) Lessing's mother needed to inform her of her father's condition/

10. What skills did Lessing teach herself during that year?
(a) Reading and writing.
(b) Sewing and darning.
(c) Speed typing and shorthand.
(d) Cooking and cleaning.

11. Which book on the experience of Communism does Lessing cite in this chapter?
(a) Darkness at Noon.
(b) The Communist Manifesto.
(c) Stalin's journals.
(d) Das Kapital.

12. To what does Lessing compare guilt?
(a) An iceberg.
(b) A festering sore.
(c) An elephant in the room.
(d) A nagging woman.

13. What did Lessing's father assume when she and Frank showed up at the family farm?
(a) Lessing's father assumed that Lessing had finally settled down.
(b) Lessing's father assumed that she was pregnant.
(c) Lessing's father assumed that she was in love.
(d) Lessing's father assumed that Frank was interested in the family's money.

14. Which of the following was NOT one of the things that Lessing and Frank had in common?
(a) Both had read the Communist Manifesto.
(b) Both subscribed to the New Statesman.
(c) Both lived in Persia as children.
(d) Both had seditious thoughts about "The Native Problem".

15. In Chapter 10, which of the following countries was Lessing thinking about as she stood at the edge of the tobacco field?
(a) Germany.
(b) England.
(c) France.
(d) Spain.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Lessing describe Frank Cooper's views on the world?

2. To which party did Ken Graham belong?

3. What was Lessing's wage when she worked as a junior typist?

4. In Chapter 14, what year did Lessing marry Gottfried Lessing?

5. Where did Frank and Lessing go on their honeymoon?

(see the answer keys)

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