When Nellie goes there and the other guests gang up on her to test her knowledge, like she's on some quiz show: "Do you like Miss Julie?", "Do you prefer George Eliot's prose or poems?", "Do you play bridge?", etc...
Also why does she answers like she knows what's she's talking about instead of being like: "Hey guys, chill... it's party, let's have some fun instead!".
The guests make fun on Nellie because they don't respect her, for them Nellie don't belong to the elite class, for them she is meretricious, cheap, frivolous and ignorant who born in the "wrong" place. It is likely that some are jealous of her and do not think that her success is justified. The film clearly criticizes the treatment toward actors who came from the lower class, for example Brad Pitt's character. The knowledge questions are their way of condescending towards her, I've seen similar things among interviewers on news shows - sometimes may also be due to racism.
shareShe's supposed to prove that she's a sophisticated actor, that she "gets it". All those trick questions are to find out if it's really true. Nellie is supposed to prove that she is if she wants to get the future acceptance of the critics.
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