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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. What does Katya suggest to Stepanych?

2. Vasya and Mashenka's marriage can be described as __________.

3. Why is business bad for Bronze in "Rothschild's Fiddle"?

4. What do Stepanych and his wife discuss every morning?

5. What embitters Nikolai Stepanych about his children?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why doesn't Grigoriev believe the magistrate when he says taking nuts will derail the train?

2. Why does Katya leave to the Caucasus?

3. What changes are observed in Nikolai Stepanych's lectures from the past to the present?

4. Why does the black monk make Andrei Kovrin feel good?

5. What stops Nevyrazimov from moving up in the world?

6. Describe Yegor and Pelageya's relationship. How do they interact? How do they feel about one another?

7. Dr. Andrei Yefimych states that Ivan Dmitrich is "interested in precisely the right things." What are these right things?

8. What does Ivan Velikopolsky in "The Student" see in the present that reminds him of the past? How does he connect the two?

9. What consumes Bronze so much in life over the last 50 years in "Rothschild's Fiddle"?

10. Why is Cherviakov so insistent on apologizing to the General?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How does Nikolai Stepanych in "A Boring Story" handle aging? How does he change? How does he react to changes due to aging?

Essay Topic 2

Compare how the soldiers and the sailor on the boat in "Gusev" handle a long boat ride back home to Russia. How do they each deal with long days without enough food and water, entertainment, and occupation? What does each resort do in order to try to keep their sanity?

Essay Topic 3

The only thing Varka in "Sleepy" wants is sleep. Eventually she gets it by killing the baby that cries. Anton Chekhov writes, "and a moment later [Varka] is already fast asleep, like the dead..." Why does Chekhov write an ellipsis at the end of Varka's story? What is the reader led to believe?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,314 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample