View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did Lessing notice about the workers at the Guardian?
(a) Lessing noticed that very few people ran the operation.
(b) Lessing noticed that whites worked alongside "Indians and Coloured people".
(c) Lessing noticed that all classes of people were employed there.
(d) Lessing noticed that there were many women working in important positions.

2. In Chapter 15, whom did Lessing find drinking wine with Gottfried?
(a) Dorothy Schwartz.
(b) Simon Pines.
(c) Frank Wisdom.
(d) Her mother.

3. Where did Lessing and Gottfried go with friends?
(a) Egypt.
(b) Zimbabwe.
(c) South Africa.
(d) Tunisia.

4. How does Lessing describe their sex life?
(a) Exciting.
(b) Strained.
(c) Sad.
(d) Spirited.

5. When did Lessing and Frank decide to have another child?
(a) When John was 9 months old.
(b) When John was 2 years old.
(c) When John was 4 years old.
(d) When John was 9 years old.

6. Who was the Minister of Finance?
(a) Arthur Koestler.
(b) Frank Wisdom.
(c) Gunther Maynard.
(d) Max Danziger.

7. What book does Lessing cite in her discussion of the Russian front?
(a) The Forgotten Soldier.
(b) Darkness at Noon.
(c) The Real Thing.
(d) All Quiet on the Western Front.

8. In Chapter 12, what did Lessing do to calm down John?
(a) She laid him on his back on the carpet.
(b) She sang nursery rhymes to him.
(c) She took John for walks in the pram.
(d) She read stories of animals to him.

9. What method of birth control had Lessing been using?
(a) Birth control pills.
(b) The Dutch cap.
(c) Condoms.
(d) None.

10. Who is the central character of Lessing's "The Good Terrorist"- a book that Lessing references in this chapter?
(a) Ivy.
(b) Alice.
(c) Jamie.
(d) Rachel.

11. In Chapter 14, what year did Lessing marry Gottfried Lessing?
(a) 1946.
(b) 1942.
(c) 1940.
(d) 1943.

12. What did Sonny Jameson borrow from Lessing?
(a) Her collection of Everyman books.
(b) Her typewriter.
(c) Her short stories.
(d) Her fountain pen.

13. How old was Jean in the scene that Lessing describes in this chapter?
(a) 15 weeks.
(b) 15 months.
(c) 5 days.
(d) 5 years.

14. What skills did Lessing teach herself during that year?
(a) Cooking and cleaning.
(b) Reading and writing.
(c) Sewing and darning.
(d) Speed typing and shorthand.

15. What aspect of her childhood determined that Lessing would never separate herself from politics?
(a) Listening to her parents' impossible ideas.
(b) Listening to the BBC each day.
(c) Listening to the way that her parents treated the servants.
(d) Listening to the ideas of the African workers whom her family employed.

Short Answer Questions

1. In Chapter 13, who did Lessing encounter in the street?

2. Where did Kurt claim his real education occurred?

3. Where did Lessing first experience a social event in which she and black people were treated equally?

4. What did the Portuguese woman give to Lessing?

5. What did Lessing do most afternoons with the new baby?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 476 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample