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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is their mother's reaction when she sees that her children have opened the presents from their stockings early and poorly rewrapped them?
(a) She pretends to not see their poor rewrapping.
(b) She scolds them for trying to deceive her.
(c) She spots their deception and bursts into tears.
(d) She laughs at their attempt at deception.

2. What is the first memory Nabokov drags from the darkness?
(a) Playing in the yard on the estate.
(b) Going on a picnic with his mother and father.
(c) Holding hands with his mother and father, as the three of them walk along a garden path in 1903,
(d) Being fed by his nanny.

3. How many years does Mademoiselle spend with the family?
(a) Two
(b) Seven.
(c) Seventeen.
(d) Five.

4. What is young Vladimir's main concern?
(a) Whether or not he can play with his friends down the road.
(b) Whether or not he can play in the forest.
(c) Whether or not he will be able to go horseback riding.
(d) Whether or not he will be able to go hunting for new and rare butterflies.

5. Who occupies one of the estates near St. Petersburg when not abroad?
(a) Nabokov's father, Dmitri.
(b) Nabokov's cousin, Yuri.
(c) Vyra, Nabokov's wife.
(d) Nabokov's uncle, Vasiliy Ivanovich.

6. Each day, when he awakes, how can young Vladimir tell what kind of day it is?
(a) By having the servants open the curtains.
(b) By the character of the light that slips through the shutters.
(c) By asking his mother to check the weather.
(d) By looking out of the window.

7. What is the common name for Boletusoften?
(a) Tropical hibiscus.
(b) Blue grass.
(c) Red geraniums.
(d) Tube mushrooms.

8. What is happening to the science of butterflies at this time?
(a) It has not changed for decades.
(b) There is a great unheaval.
(c) The Germans have made leaps and bounds in discoveries.
(d) They have not found any new species.

9. What does Nabokov reveal about his mind?
(a) He always associates sounds with colors.
(b) He has depression.
(c) He hallucinates.
(d) He has a great short-term memory.

10. How does Mr. Cummings influence Nabokov's scientific drawings of butterflies?
(a) He is Nabokov's drawing instructor.
(b) He is Nabokov's botanist.
(c) He is Nabokov's science instructor.
(d) He is Nabokov's butterfly instructor.

11. What game does the whole family often play on the estate?
(a) Lawn tennis.
(b) Lawn bowling.
(c) Rounders.
(d) Badmitton.

12. What are two events that Nabokov remembers watching outside his mother's window?
(a) Mr. Burness' arrival and the revolutionary action in the street.
(b) The training of horses and the village children on their way to school.
(c) The training of horses and the revolutionary action in the street.
(d) Mr. Burness' arrival nad the village children on their way to school.

13. What does Nabokov call the process of using both the English and Russian translations of "Speak, Memory" to shape the current work?
(a) Re-Englishing.
(b) Redoing.
(c) Rewriting.
(d) Reediting.

14. Who are some of the ancestors on Nabokov's paternal, Russian side?
(a) An explorer, the sister of a prominent Decembrist, and Dmitri Nabokov, the author's grandfather, who served as Minister of Justice for eight years.
(b) A lawyer, scientist, and Dmitri Nabokov, a well-known actor.
(c) A government leader, an opera singer, and Dmitri Nabokov, the surgeon.
(d) A prominent Caholic cardinal, a physician, and Dmitri Nabokov, an inventor.

15. Why is he detained briefly in 1918, by a Bolshevik soldier?
(a) He has run away from the Red Army.
(b) He is trying to escape the country.
(c) He is evading the draft.
(d) He is accused him of signaling British warships with his net.

Short Answer Questions

1. How long does the family stay in Paris?

2. What properties do the Nabokovs own until the Russian revolution?

3. Soon, the string of nurses transforms into what?

4. After his father's death, to where does Nabokov's widowed mother move?

5. How does Nabokov open his autobiography?

(see the answer keys)

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