1984, Part Three quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. What is written on the note the dark-haired girl presses into Winston's hand?

   • 'Meet me in the country' and a route
   • Correct answer: 'I love you' in a large, unformed hand
   • 'The Thought Police watch you,' a warning
   • 'Down with Big Brother' in capitals

   She fakes a fall in a Ministry corridor and slips him the note as he helps her up. In one instant the woman Winston had taken for a spy becomes his only ally.

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2. 2

   Question 2. What does Winston recognize about the countryside where he first meets Julia alone?

   • It is the village where his mother lived
   • It matches a photograph he once destroyed
   • Correct answer: It matches the Golden Country he dreams of
   • It is the churchyard of the nursery rhyme

   Winston has dreamed for years of a sunlit old pasture he calls the Golden Country, and the meadow Julia's directions lead him to answers that dream almost exactly.

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3. 3

   Question 3. Winston believes O'Brien can bring him into the Brotherhood. What is the Brotherhood in 1984?

   • Correct answer: The underground said to oppose the Party
   • The Inner Party's private security service
   • A society of veterans of the Revolution
   • The Party body that organizes Hate Week

   The Brotherhood is the secret conspiracy attributed to Emmanuel Goldstein. O'Brien presents himself as a member and swears Winston and Julia in, yet Winston never meets anyone in it besides O'Brien and the servant Martin.

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4. 4

   Question 4. Why does Julia volunteer so eagerly for the Junior Anti-Sex League?

   • She hopes for promotion to the Inner Party
   • She believes the Party's line on chastity
   • She was ordered to join by the Thought Police
   • Correct answer: Conspicuous orthodoxy keeps suspicion away

   Julia worked out young that the loudest volunteer draws the least attention. The scarlet sash is camouflage for the private life she leads underneath it.

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5. 5

   Question 5. Which of these events actually happen in Part Two?

   • Julia passes Winston a note in a Ministry corridor after she stumbles and falls.

     Happened

     The fall is staged. In the two or three seconds it takes Winston to help her up, the folded scrap is in his palm.

   • Julia brings real coffee, sugar and chocolate bought on the black market.

     Happened

     Her smuggled luxuries prove the Party's grip on supply is a lie, and they matter far more to her than any theory does.

   • Winston writes Julia a reply and leaves it hidden at her workbench.

     Didn't happen

     Winston never dares write to her. He spends nearly a week inventing a way to sit beside her in the canteen instead.

   • Winston rents the room above Mr. Charrington's shop as a private refuge.

     Happened

     The room has a real bed, a gateleg table, the glass paperweight and no telescreen he can see, so Winston treats it as a world of its own.

   • A rat appears in the rented room and Winston reacts with helpless terror.

     Happened

     Julia treats it as vermin to be chased off; Winston nearly cannot speak. His horror of rats is planted here and used against him later.

   • Syme is promoted to lead the Newspeak dictionary project.

     Didn't happen

     Syme is vaporized instead. His chair is simply empty one day, and his name comes off the club and committee lists.

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6. 6

   Question 6. What becomes of Syme while Winston and Julia's affair is going on?

   • He is promoted to run the dictionary
   • He reports Winston to the Thought Police
   • Correct answer: He vanishes, and nobody mentions his name
   • He is moved to the Ministry of Love

   Winston had predicted it: Syme understood Newspeak's purpose too clearly to be safe. Once he is gone, noticing the gap is itself dangerous.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What pretext does O'Brien use to give Winston his home address?

   • Inviting him to a Ministry chess evening
   • Correct answer: Lending him the new Newspeak dictionary
   • Passing on a message from Emmanuel Goldstein
   • Returning a report Winston had mislaid

   O'Brien offers an advance copy of the dictionary and names the hours he is at home. Winston reads the whole exchange, including a reference to the vaporized Syme, as a coded signal.

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8. 8

   Question 8. The Party calls the great majority of Oceania's people proles. What does the word mean?

   • A prisoner held in the Ministry of Love
   • A child enrolled in the Spies
   • A Party member stripped of his rank
   • Correct answer: An ordinary worker outside the Party

   Proles are the unenrolled working majority, left largely unwatched because the Party thinks them harmless. Listening to the washerwoman sing, Winston decides the future belongs to them.

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9. 9

   Question 9. Which of O'Brien's demands do Winston and Julia refuse to accept?

   • Correct answer: That they separate and never meet again
   • That they kill themselves when ordered to
   • That they throw acid in a child's face
   • That they betray other members' names

   They say yes to murder, sabotage, forgery and suicide, then balk at being parted. Julia answers no at once, and Winston follows her.

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10. 10

    Question 10. When the enemy changes in the middle of Hate Week, how does the crowd explain the wrong banners?

    • They believe the posters were printed early
    • They accept the Party made a mistake
    • Correct answer: They decide saboteurs must have hung them
    • They assume the speaker misread his notes

    The speaker changes the enemy's name without pausing. Rather than notice the contradiction, the crowd blames sabotage, and the Records Department works around the clock to make every document agree.

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11. 11

    Question 11. O'Brien delivers Goldstein's book, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. What does oligarchical collectivism describe?

    • Land and tools owned by the workers
    • A standing truce among the superstates
    • The worship of one leader above the law
    • Correct answer: Rule by a few in the name of everyone

    The phrase names a system where a small ruling group holds every lever of power while claiming to act for the whole people. That is the book's account of the Party.

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12. 12

    Question 12. Which of these events actually happen in Part Two?

    • O'Brien switches off the telescreen in his flat.

      Happened

      Winston did not know a telescreen could be turned off at all. The privilege measures the distance between Inner Party life and his own.

    • Winston and Julia meet Emmanuel Goldstein in person at O'Brien's flat.

      Didn't happen

      They never meet Goldstein. O'Brien only promises the book, which reaches Winston later in a briefcase.

    • Oceania's enemy changes from Eurasia to Eastasia in the middle of Hate Week.

      Happened

      The switch comes mid-speech, and Winston then works punishing shifts rewriting the record so that the new enemy has always been the enemy.

    • Julia stays awake through Goldstein's book and argues with Winston about it.

      Didn't happen

      She falls asleep while he reads aloud. The theory that grips Winston simply bores her.

    • Winston smashes the glass paperweight so the guards cannot take it.

      Didn't happen

      A guard smashes it against the hearth during the raid, and the coral inside turns out to be a tiny scrap of nothing.

    • The voice that orders Winston and Julia to stand still comes from behind a picture.

      Happened

      A telescreen has been hidden behind the engraving of the old church for as long as they have been using the room.

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13. 13

    Question 13. What does Winston learn about Mr. Charrington during the arrest?

    • He has run a Brotherhood cell for years
    • Correct answer: He is a much younger Thought Police agent
    • He sold Winston's diary to the Ministry
    • He was taken away with Winston and Julia

    The mild old shopkeeper straightens up, his hair is black, and his voice is the iron voice from the telescreen. The room had been a trap from Winston's first visit to the shop.

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14. 14

    Question 14. What does Winston conclude from the memory of his mother and the chocolate ration?

    • Correct answer: That private loyalty had a dignity now lost
    • That his father must have denounced them both
    • That hunger excuses almost any betrayal
    • That she had been an informer all along

    His mother's embrace could not save the child and she knew it, which is exactly what made it human. Winston measures his own theft of the chocolate against a code the Party has since abolished.

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15. 15

    Question 15. What does Goldstein's book explain to Winston, and what does it leave unanswered?

    • It explains the past but not the Newspeak plan
    • Correct answer: It explains how the Party rules but not why
    • It explains who Big Brother is but not where
    • It explains the war but not the Thought Police

    The book lays out the machinery, perpetual war, the three classes, the abolition of the past, and confirms what Winston already sensed. The motive behind it all is the question he never reaches.

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