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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Part 1: Chapter 12.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is Nafisi doing at the beginning of Chapter 11?
(a) Cleaning out her office at the University of Tehran.
(b) Remembering her life as a child.
(c) Looking over the class notes she kept from the study sessions.
(d) Looking at the photographs of the girls.

2. What is the best definition of Nabokov's term "poshlust"?
(a) The ability to remain heroic in the midst of banality and extreme brutality.
(b) Beauty in the midst of a brutal government regime.
(c) The use of reality to contrast with a system of barbaric ritual.
(d) Empty rituals, false importance, and the reduction of reality to banality.

3. Why does the male student have to meet with Nafisi separately?
(a) The female students do not like having a male student in their class.
(b) His schedule does not permit him to meet with the female students.
(c) Nafisi believes that male and female students learn differently.
(d) A group with men and women would arouse suspicion from the Islamist authorities.

4. What symbol does Nafisi think of when she thinks of Lolita?
(a) A butterfly pinned to the wall.
(b) A school uniform.
(c) A school report card.
(d) A helpless little girl.

5. How does Nafisi structure the first class sessions?
(a) Like a lecture class, with the students taking notes on Nafisi's lectures.
(b) Like a traditional literature class, with Nafisi asking questions and leading discussions.
(c) With the students leading discussion and choosing what to read.
(d) With students reading "revolutionary" authors and discussing the parallels to contemporary society.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why do Ministry of Education officials ask the faculty at Nafisi's school if they thought they were in Switzerland?

2. What is the first work Nafisi and her students in the study group discuss?

3. Why does Nafisi consider Humbert, Lolita's molester, such a frightening character?

4. What does Nafisi believe is the main point of "Lolita"?

5. Why do the students meet in Nafisi's apartment?

(see the answer key)

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