1984, Chapter 7 quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. What famous statement does Winston write in his diary at the beginning of Part One, Chapter 7?

   • Big Brother is watching you
   • Down with Big Brother
   • War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery
   • Correct answer: If there is hope, it lies in the proles

   Winston opens his diary entry with this declaration, reasoning that the proles' vast numbers make them the only group capable of overthrowing the Party.

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2. 2

   Question 2. What percentage of Oceania's population do the proles represent?

   • Sixty-five percent
   • Seventy-five percent
   • Correct answer: Eighty-five percent
   • Fifty percent

   The proles make up eighty-five percent of the population, vastly outnumbering Party members, which is why Winston believes they hold the potential for revolution.

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3. 3

   Question 3. What did the photograph of Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford prove?

   • Correct answer: That they were at a Party function in New York on a date they had confessed to being on Eurasian soil
   • That they were meeting the Eurasian General Staff in Siberia on the midsummer date named in their confessions
   • That they were drinking gin in the Chestnut Tree Cafe on a date they had claimed to be in Canada
   • That they were guilty of treason as charged in both of their public trials

   The photograph showed the three men at a Party event in New York on the very date their confessions claimed they were on enemy territory, proving the confessions were fabricated.

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4. 4

   Question 4. What did Winston do with the incriminating photograph?

   • He showed it to O'Brien
   • Correct answer: He dropped it into a memory hole
   • He gave it to a prole shopkeeper
   • He hid it in his diary

   Overcome by fear, Winston destroyed the only concrete evidence of Party falsification he ever possessed by feeding it into a memory hole connected to an incinerator.

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5. 5

   Question 5. How does the Party primarily keep the proles under control?

   • Forced labor camps and public executions
   • Constant telescreen surveillance and Thought Police monitoring
   • Correct answer: Heavy work, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling
   • Mandatory attendance at political rallies and Two Minutes Hate

   Rather than indoctrinating them, the Party lets heavy work, films, football, beer, and above all gambling fill "the horizon of their minds," while a few Thought Police agents mark down and eliminate the individuals judged capable of becoming dangerous.

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6. 6

   Question 6. What does Winston copy into his diary from a children's textbook?

   • A poem celebrating Big Brother as the chief of the old capitalists
   • Correct answer: A passage describing capitalist oppression before the Revolution
   • A song lyric about the spreading chestnut tree and mutual betrayal
   • A passage on the jus primae noctis written for children in the textbook

   Winston copies a propaganda passage depicting pre-revolutionary capitalists as top-hat-wearing oppressors, recognizing it as crude propaganda but unable to verify what life was actually like before the Party.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What does Winston declare about freedom at the end of Part One, Chapter 7?

   • Freedom is slavery, as the Party teaches
   • Freedom can only come through collective action
   • Freedom is the absence of fear
   • Correct answer: Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four

   Winston's declaration asserts that intellectual freedom begins with the ability to state objective truths. He writes it as though speaking to O'Brien, holding on to the truism that "The solid world exists, its laws do not change."

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8. 8

   Question 8. Why does the Party not consider the proles a serious threat?

   • Correct answer: The Party views the proles as subhuman and incapable of political thought
   • The proles have signed loyalty oaths to Big Brother and report one another weekly
   • The proles are too few in number to challenge Party authority even if they united
   • The proles have telescreens in their homes and are watched more closely than anyone

   The Party considers the proles natural inferiors, barely human, and too unintelligent to develop the political consciousness needed for organized resistance.

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9. 9

   Question 9. Which of these events actually happened in this chapter?

   • In Part One, Chapter 7, Winston shares the photograph of Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford with a trusted coworker at the Ministry of Truth.

     Didn't happen

     Winston did not share the photograph with anyone. He destroyed it himself by dropping it into a memory hole out of fear, though today, he thinks, he would probably have kept it.

   • Winston recalls a crowd of prole women letting out a great cry of anger and despair at a street market.

     Happened

     Winston remembers hearing a tremendous shout that he took for the start of a riot, but it was only two or three hundred women fighting over tin saucepans at a market stall. He wonders why they could never shout like that "about anything that mattered."

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10. 10

    Question 10. In the context of Part One, Chapter 7, what does "heresy" mean when Winston realizes that common sense is "the heresy of heresies"?

    • A forbidden religious rite that has been outlawed by the civil authorities
    • Correct answer: An opinion that contradicts established orthodoxy, especially a punishable one
    • A kind of insanity consisting in holding a belief that almost nobody else shares
    • A secret jargon used by a banned sect to hide its teachings from outsiders

    Heresy means holding a belief that contradicts official doctrine. Winston realizes that the Party considers empirical observation and common sense to be the most dangerous form of unorthodox thought.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What is a "sinecure," the kind of post Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford were given after their pardon?

    • Correct answer: A position requiring little or no work but bringing status
    • A guaranteed remedy for an illness or a bodily affliction
    • A position demanding dangerous and exhausting physical labor
    • A formal pardon granted to a criminal who has confessed

    A sinecure is a post that requires little or no real work. After confessing, the three men were pardoned and given posts "which were in fact sinecures but which sounded important."

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does "indoctrinate" mean in the statement that no attempt was made to indoctrinate the proles with the ideology of the Party?

    • To punish someone harshly for holding forbidden opinions
    • To enroll someone formally as a member of a political party
    • Correct answer: To teach someone to accept a set of beliefs without questioning them
    • To record someone's personal details in an official document

    To indoctrinate is to drill a set of beliefs into someone so that they accept them without question. The Party does not bother with the proles: "It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings."

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