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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who hosted the charity ball where Ivanovich won the tour?
(a) The narrator's business.
(b) The German government.
(c) A German tourism trade group.
(d) Russian refugees.

2. What technique is used in the phrase "toward a train lurking behind other trains"?
(a) Hyperbole.
(b) Personification.
(c) Conceit.
(d) Cacophony.

3. What does the narrator remember about the time of year in which the story takes place?
(a) It was shortly after the last snow melted.
(b) It was an exceptionally hot summer.
(c) It was damp and cold.
(d) The leaves had begun to turn.

4. What "fancy-style" item does Ivanovich buy for his trip (3)?
(a) An enormous backpack.
(b) A pair of hiking boots.
(c) A walking stick.
(d) A flannel shirt.

5. What is Schramm's job title?
(a) Special stimulator.
(b) Narrative guide.
(c) Official sight illuminator.
(d) Rural enjoyment monitor.

6. Which character is said to have "lustreless eyes and a vague velvety vileness" (6)?
(a) Schramm.
(b) The widow.
(c) Schultz.
(d) Greta.

7. At the inn near the lake, what nationality does Ivanovich believe the innkeeper to be?
(a) Italian.
(b) Russian.
(c) German.
(d) Austrian.

8. What is the tour group doing in the passage that says "they raised dust along a highway" (12)?
(a) Digging.
(b) Walking.
(c) Fighting.
(d) Riding in a car.

9. In the exclamation "How I hate you, our daily!" what technique is being used (13)?
(a) Synesthesia.
(b) Allusion.
(c) Dialect.
(d) Amplification.

10. What does the narrator say is "dangerous for the soul" (7)?
(a) The "configuration of some entirely insignificant objects."
(b) "A memory of love, disguised as a meadow."
(c) The "charm the world acquires when it is wound up and moving like a merry-go-round."
(d) "The anonymity of all the parts of a landscape."

11. How does the text's language change when the group gets off the train at the last stop on the first day?
(a) The language becomes more grandiloquent.
(b) The language becomes more lyrical.
(c) The language becomes more conversational.
(d) The language becomes more circuitous.

12. What does Ivanovich associate with happiness?
(a) His friends.
(b) His childhood.
(c) Music.
(d) Work.

13. From context, what is the likely meaning of the word "dactyl" in "On the other side...towered, arising from dactyl to dactyl, an ancient black castle" (14)?
(a) An image found in a metrical foot of poetry.
(b) A tower in the shape of a digit, like a toe or finger.
(c) An architectural figure of a bird.
(d) A type of stone used in medieval constructions.

14. What does the Bureau's song equate with solitude?
(a) Depression.
(b) Criminality.
(c) Independence.
(d) Intellect.

15. The group leader wears "Tyrolese" clothing. What is true of his clothing?
(a) It is traditionally worn in the Austrian Alps.
(b) It is traditionally worn by shepherds.
(c) It is traditionally worn by servants.
(d) It is traditionally worn in the Black Forest region.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Ivanovich get to the train on the morning of his departure?

2. What relationship does Vasili Ivanovich have to the story's narrator?

3. What is Ivanovich expected to carry during the second day of the tour?

4. What detail is the narrator uncertain if he is remembering correctly?

5. When Ivanovich falls asleep on the third day of the tour, how do the others wake him up?

(see the answer keys)

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