The Master and Margarita, Chapter 10: News from Yalta quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. What time does Rimsky's watch show when he flies into a rage over Styopa's absence?

   • Half past twelve
   • Correct answer: Five past two
   • A quarter to four
   • Twenty past eleven

   Rimsky sees that it is five minutes past two, though Styopa had called around eleven promising to arrive in half an hour.

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2. 2

   Question 2. Who brings the super-lightning telegrams into Rimsky's office?

   • Correct answer: A woman in a uniform jacket
   • Karpov, back from the flat
   • The messenger girl at the door
   • An usher from the box office

   A woman in a uniform jacket, visored cap, black skirt and sneakers delivers each telegram and makes them sign her notebook.

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3. 3

   Question 3. What does Varenukha call the person sending the first telegram from Yalta?

   • A Georgian joker
   • A Yalta drunkard
   • A hired hypnotist
   • Correct answer: A false Dmitri

   Varenukha dismisses the man in Yalta as a false Dmitri, a pretender using someone else's name.

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4. 4

   Question 4. How does Rimsky test whether the photogram is genuine?

   • He reads it aloud over the telephone line
   • He holds it up against the window light
   • Correct answer: He compares it with Styopa's signatures
   • He shows it to the girl in the box office

   Rimsky takes papers from his desk and matches the photogram's back-slanting letters against Styopa's signatures with their corkscrew flourish.

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5. 5

   Question 5. What does Koroviev tell Varenukha about Styopa over the telephone?

   • Correct answer: He went out of town for a drive in the car
   • He is in a meeting with the Yalta police
   • He is asleep in the bedroom after a party
   • He is resting at a dacha outside town

   Koroviev says Styopa left for a drive in the car to get a breath of fresh air and will come back.

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6. 6

   Question 6. Why does Varenukha decide the Yalta story is a drunken joke?

   • He learns that no planes flew south that morning
   • He finds Styopa's shoes left in the director's office
   • Correct answer: He recalls a new tavern in Pushkino called Yalta
   • He hears Styopa's voice on a crossed telephone line

   Varenukha remembers a new Georgian tavern in Pushkino named Yalta and concludes Styopa got drunk there and is sending telegrams.

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7. 7

   Question 7. Why do the two strangers take Varenukha's briefcase?

   • He owed the strangers money from a lost game of cards
   • He refused to hand them thirty free passes for tonight's show
   • He had insulted Woland during the earlier phone call
   • Correct answer: He ignored a warning not to take the telegrams anywhere

   The cat-like man reminds him he was warned over the phone not to take the telegrams anywhere, and he went anyway.

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8. 8

   Question 8. What does Rimsky's calculation of the flight to Yalta chiefly show?

   • That the Yalta investigators have mixed up their times
   • Correct answer: That reason cannot account for what has happened to Styopa
   • That Varenukha has misreported the distance to Yalta
   • That Styopa must have hired a fast military fighter plane

   The numbers would require a plane flying twelve thousand miles an hour, so logic only proves the event impossible, though the evidence says it happened.

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9. 9

   Question 9. Whose voice turns out to match the repulsive nasal voice on the telephone?

   • Koroviev, Woland's interpreter
   • An official of the Yalta police
   • Correct answer: The red-haired attacker with the fang
   • The cat-like fat man who strikes first

   The second attacker, the red-haired man with the fang, speaks in the same nasal voice that had come over the telephone.

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10. 10

    Question 10. What does 'physiognomy' mean as used in: 'a short, fat man with what seemed to him a cat-like physiognomy'?

    • Correct answer: The shape of a person's face and features
    • The way a person walks or moves
    • A person's habit of speaking softly
    • The clothes a person chooses to wear

    Physiognomy means a person's face or facial features, so the attacker looks like a cat.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does 'malefactors' mean as used in: 'choking with the desire to expose the malefactors'?

    • Reporters chasing a scandal
    • Correct answer: People who have done wrong
    • Managers who run a theatre
    • Spectators buying cheap seats

    Malefactors are wrongdoers; Varenukha wants to unmask whoever is playing nasty tricks on the theatre.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does 'irresolutely' mean as used in: 'He suddenly faltered and added irresolutely'?

    • Cheerfully and at once
    • Quietly but with confidence
    • Angrily and very loudly
    • Correct answer: Hesitantly and uncertainly

    Irresolutely means without firm decision; Rimsky hesitates as he remembers the criminal investigation.

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13. 13

    Question 13. Which of these events happen in Rimsky's office in Chapter 10?

    • Varenukha learns from the foreign tourist bureau that Woland is staying in Likhodeev's apartment.

      Happened

      When Rimsky asks where Woland is staying, Varenukha calls the foreign tourist bureau and learns that he is in Likhodeev's apartment.

    • Rimsky speaks with the Yalta investigators on the telephone.

      Didn't happen

      Rimsky asks for a super-urgent call to Yalta, but he says the line is broken, and he sends a super-lightning telegram instead.

    • Rimsky locks the office door with a key.

      Happened

      After the photogram arrives, Rimsky tells the messenger girl to let no one in except postmen and locks the door with a key.

    • Styopa himself answers when Varenukha rings the apartment.

      Didn't happen

      When Varenukha rings the apartment, a rattling voice that calls itself Koroviev answers and says Styopa has gone for a drive.

    • Rimsky takes five hundred roubles from the fireproof safe.

      Happened

      After the telegram asking for five hundred, Rimsky counts out five hundred roubles from the fireproof safe and sends a messenger to the telegraph office.

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14. 14

    Question 14. Which of these events happen during and after the attack on Varenukha?

    • Varenukha's cap vanishes down the hole in the toilet seat.

      Happened

      The cat-like fat man strikes Varenukha on the ear so hard that his cap flies off and vanishes down the hole in the seat.

    • A policeman sees the attack and blows his whistle.

      Didn't happen

      No one comes to help: the storm washes everyone off Sadovaya, and there is no one to save Varenukha.

    • Two barefoot women holding their shoes press themselves to the wall of the gateway.

      Happened

      As the two attackers drag Varenukha through the gateway of the house, two barefoot women holding their shoes and stockings press themselves to the wall.

    • Varenukha feels the red-haired girl's kiss before he loses consciousness.

      Didn't happen

      The naked red-haired girl offers to give him a kiss, but Varenukha faints and never feels it.

    • Blood from Varenukha's nose spills onto his Tolstoy blouse.

      Happened

      A third blow, from one of the two attackers, makes blood gush from his nose on to his Tolstoy blouse.

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