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

2. In exile in America, when a ranger or marshal spots him traipsing into the backwoods, net in hand, what is he asked?
(a) What the net is for.
(b) Where his guide is.
(c) What he is doing in the woods.
(d) If he has a fishing license.

3. After his father's death, to where does Nabokov's widowed mother move?
(a) London.
(b) Prague.
(c) Paris.
(d) Berlin.

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

5. How do the aristocrats confront the ocean waves?
(a) On a boat.
(b) With the help of professional bathers.
(c) By swimming in groups.
(d) By diving in.

Short Answer Questions

1. To whom is Chapter Five devoted?

2. What is seen as a dreaded event?

3. Why is he detained briefly in 1918, by a Bolshevik soldier?

4. Who occupies one of the estates near St. Petersburg when not abroad?

5. With what is young Vladimir obsessed?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is Nabokov angry with the Bolsheviks? What is the cause of this anger?

2. What happens to the Greek tutor, Ordo?

3. How do the Nabokovs travel from St. Petersburg to Paris?

4. What evidence is there showing that Nabokov and Tamara's relationship is not as innocent as his parents may think it is.

5. Why is the couple allowed to be on their own.

6. Why does Mademoiselle want to leave the family?

7. How does Nabokov spend hours of his time during this period of his life?

8. Why might be the reason for the Nabokov's leaving Europe?

9. What does the Russian revolution do to most of Russia's writers and artists?

10. What is the process Nabokov goes through to create a poem?

(see the answer keys)

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