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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does the narrator insult his dance partner?
(a) Being too intimate with her.
(b) Letting the school bully cut in on a dance.
(c) Telling her she needs more make-up.
(d) Telling her he like her straight hair better than the curls she now sports.

2. What story does the narrator tell about a young French boy?
(a) The boy won a world-wide contest.
(b) The boy almost kills the king despite all the guards.
(c) The boy saves the king's life.
(d) The boy is sentenced to death.

3. Who moves in with the narrator's family?
(a) The narrator's first cousin.
(b) The narrator's paternal grandmother.
(c) The narrator's maternal aunt.
(d) The narrator's paternal aunt.

4. Who is Pashka?
(a) The headmaster at the narrator's school.
(b) The janitor at the narrator's school.
(c) A math teacher.
(d) A fisherman.

5. What does the narrator succeed in imagining?
(a) Becoming a famous writer.
(b) Living in France.
(c) The breasts of a homeless woman he once sees.
(d) Joining his sister in Leningrad.

6. What does the narrator feel that Charlotte temporarily gives him?
(a) The ability to lift his mood.
(b) The ability to feel eternal.
(c) A sense of purpose.
(d) A sense of belonging.

7. Who is Beria?
(a) A French baker.
(b) A Russian leader who stalks women.
(c) The narrator's mother's uncle.
(d) The crazy man next door to the narrator.

8. Where does the narrator catch Charlotte's eye?
(a) From the window of the train.
(b) In a reflection in a car side mirror.
(c) In the bathroom mirror as he shaves.
(d) In a plate glass window of the grocery store.

9. How does the narrator sometimes use his scarf?
(a) To pull himself onto the roof of the school.
(b) To summon a taxi.
(c) To pull Pashka out of the water.
(d) To hide his birthmark.

10. Who is the woman in the shapka?
(a) The narrator's sister.
(b) Charlotte's aunt.
(c) Charlotte's daughter.
(d) The narrator's mother.

11. What happens one day to Pashka?
(a) He solves a math problem no one has done before.
(b) He has a heart attack.
(c) He nearly drowns for real.
(d) He is fired.

12. Why does the narrator lie to Pashka?
(a) To placate Pashka.
(b) The narrator does not lie.
(c) To appear more knowledgeable.
(d) To convince Pashka to do something for the narrator.

13. What does Pashka demand to know from the narrator?
(a) What happens to the young, French boy.
(b) Why the boy is being executed.
(c) If the king rewards the boy.
(d) Why the king's life is in danger.

14. Why is the narrator not allowed to travel to the USSR?
(a) He relinquished his Russian citizenship.
(b) He was granted refugee status.
(c) He is wanted for treason.
(d) He is allowed to travel to Russia.

15. What does the narrator consider when he runs out of money?
(a) Joining the French Foreign Legion.
(b) Working for his best friend's father.
(c) Writing his grandmother to ask for money.
(d) Suicide.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who comes home from boarding school?

2. What does the narrator do that he has not done before?

3. What does the narrator realize about Charlotte and himself?

4. What does the narrator spend his time doing?

5. What does the narrator scrounge up enough money to buy?

(see the answer keys)

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