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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Nafisi share with her male acquaintance in Chapter 16?
(a) A ham sandwich.
(b) A dinner party.
(c) An ice cream cone.
(d) A car ride.

2. 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 students reading "revolutionary" authors and discussing the parallels to contemporary society.
(d) With the students leading discussion and choosing what to read.

3. What are students at Nafisi's school regularly asked to do?
(a) Bring in their friendship bracelets so that everyone has one to wear.
(b) Attend funerals of martyrs for the Iranian Revolution.
(c) Homework in the Persian language.
(d) Participate in a ritualistic stomping and burning the American flag while shouting "Death to America!"

4. Why does Nafisi remind the students of Nabokov?
(a) Because Nabokov wrote in an unsettled environment like the setting the students are in.
(b) Nabokov is Nafisi's favorite author.
(c) Because Nabokov symbolizes the kind of writer that the students want be become.
(d) Nabokov believed that a totalitarian government offered students the chance to be free.

5. Where is Nafisi's apartment located?
(a) On the campus of the University of Tehran.
(b) Above a restaurant.
(c) In the middle of a mountain range.
(d) Across from an ex-American hospital.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why do the intruders want access to Nafisi's house?

2. Why is Nafisi nervous about the intruders being in her house?

3. How do the students get enough copies of "Lolita" to study?

4. What object does Nafisi refer to when she first describes the students in her study group?

5. Chapter 15 presents a clear parallel between the character of Humbert and which group of people?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why do Nafisi and her students feel so strongly about Nabokov and his works?

2. According to Vera Nabokov, what is the beauty in "Lolita" and why is it missed by critics?

3. How does the Iranian regime expect women to behave on the streets of Tehran?

4. Why does Nafisi agree with Nabokov's statement that every great novel is a fairy tale?

5. Why does Nafisi describe the three types of women portrayed in "A Thousand and One Nights"?

6. What is the purpose of the dreams that Nafisi describes?

7. What is the role of literature in Part 1, Chapter 20?

8. How is Professor X's method of teaching literature different than Nafisi's method of teaching literature?

9. Why does Nafisi ask her children about their memories of Iran?

10. What is the similarity between Lolita's past and the past of Nafisi's students?

(see the answer keys)

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