RUSSIA'S LAST CZAR, NICHOLAS II PART A: Which TWO of the following statements best describe the central ideas of the text?

A. Nicholas II was not a man suited to become the czar, nor did he want this power.

B While the people thought of the czar almost like a god, Nicholas II considered himself more like an instrument of the people’s will.

CHad the Japanese not attacked Port Arthur, Russia would have likely won the Russo-Japanese War quickly and easily.

D The strange holy man Rasputin single-handedly proved to the be the fall of the House of the Romanovs.

E The Romanovs’ obliviousness to Russian poverty and suffering, combined with a number of bloody tragedies, contributed to their unpopularity.

F The Bolsheviks were reluctant to permanently remove the Romanovs, considering their very new grasp on power and the people’s love for the royals.

PART B BELOW

PART B: Which TWO of the following quotes best support the answer to Part A?A“Nicholas II, by contrast, was one of history’s most dismal examples of the wrong man, at the wrong time, and in the wrong place. His reign seemed to be almost predetermined to end in a momentous tragedy.” ( Paragraph 6)

B “They had ruled Russia for more than 280 years, and most of their subjects—as the czar’s German-born wife, Alexandra, wrote to British Queen Victoria —practically worshipped them “as divine beings.” ( Paragraph 9)

C“What the last Romanov did not have was an understanding and respect for the dirt-poor and frequently hungry peasants who eked out a meager living, and it was part of Nicholas’ misfortune that his abysmal insensitivity and weakness were revealed on the very day after his coronation.” ( Paragraph 12)

D“In February 1904—less than four months later—Japan launched a surprise attack that destroyed a Russian fleet and threatened to seize Port Arthur, Russia’s only warm-water port. In the war that followed, the Japanese army decisively won every battle…” ( Paragraph 24)

E“Nicholas also showed a puzzling disregard for a major uproar in his own court over the growing influence of a mystical faith healer named Grigori Rasputin.” ( Paragraph 27)

F“After the control over the country shifted from a provisional government to Lenin’s radicals (the Bolsheviks), the royal couple, their son and four daughters, and the ex-czar’s personal physician and three servants, were moved to a house in Yekaterinburg, a town beyond the Urals.” ( Paragraph 30)