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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How is Mr. Nahvi like Jane Austen's character Elizabeth Bennet?

2. Why does Yassi walk faster then suddenly stop when she is out with a gentleman caller?

3. In Part 2, Chapter 12, why does Nafisi decide to cancel class?

4. In Part 4, Chapter 12, where do Nafisi and her husband go?

5. How does the class study of "The Great Gatsby" affect Nafisi?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Nafisi think teaching "The Great Gatsby" was the right choice for that time and place?

2. What does Nafisi do during her early years as a professor at the University of Tehran?

3. What does it mean to be complicit in one's own crimes?

4. What does Nafisi mean when she says that the real day of the Ayatollah's death has not yet occurred?

5. How has Miss Ruhi changed since her introduction in Part 3, Chapter 14?

6. Why does Nafisi add an epilogue to the end of the memoir?

7. What does Nafisi do during her time as a member of the Iranian Student Movement?

8. Nafisi first mentions the magician in Part 1, Chapter 10. Why does she wait until Part 2, Chapter 20, to describe him more fully?

9. What happens to Nafisi during her discussion with Mr. Bahri about wearing the veil?

10. In Part 3, Chapter 14, why does Nafisi describe her students in such detail?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Women are central characters in Nafisi's text and in the texts that Nafisi chooses to teach. Early in the book, Nafisi present three types of women in "A Thousand and One Nights." Of those types, which best represents the majority of the women in the Iranian Republic? Which type represents Nafisi's students? Which type represents Nafisi?

Essay Topic 2

Throughout the book, Nafisi uses language with strong sensory connections. Choose taste, touch, sight, smell, or hearing and write an essay that discusses the use of that sense in each of the four sections of the book. Why is this sense used? Is the sense always used by the same individual? Is it always used in the same way?

Essay Topic 3

Nafisi addresses disappearance and absence as a major theme in the book. Write an essay that examines the issues of disappearance and absence in the novels Nafisi teaches, in the lives of her students, and in Nafisi's own life, both personally and professionally.

(see the answer keys)

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