A Separate Peace, Chapter 9 quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. What does the recruiter show the senior class in the Renaissance Room?

   • Correct answer: A film made by the United States ski troops
   • A newsreel of the Tunisian desert campaign
   • A training film about naval gunnery drills
   • Photographs from the 1936 Olympic Games

   A recruiter from the United States ski troops screens a film of skiers coming down white slopes, and the images decide Leper on enlisting.

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2. 2

   Question 2. Why does Gene think Devon would have been better off if Brinker, rather than Leper, had been the first boy to go?

   • Correct answer: Brinker would have made a loud, dramatic departure
   • Brinker was better suited to combat than Leper was
   • Brinker could have persuaded the class to follow
   • Brinker had already been accepted by the ski troops

   Gene imagines the school reverberating for weeks with Brinker's Last Words and Military Bearing, which would have made the war feel like a daily fact instead of a joke.

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3. 3

   Question 3. How does Brinker react when Gene first raises the idea of a Winter Carnival?

   • Correct answer: He says he sees nothing worth celebrating at all
   • He warns that the Headmaster would expel everyone
   • He offers to organize the whole event by himself
   • He suggests holding it out on the frozen river ice

   Brinker answers in the disillusioned way he has lately developed, and only comes around when Gene points out it is the first thing Finny has wanted since he came back.

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4. 4

   Question 4. Why does Finny give up the idea of having the school band play at the carnival?

   • Correct answer: It would have spread news of the carnival campus-wide
   • The band refused to perform outdoors in the winter cold
   • Brinker had already promised the job to Chet Douglass
   • The Headmaster had barred the band from leaving campus

   The carnival is unauthorized, so Finny settles for Chet's trumpet rather than advertise the event to every corner of the school.

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5. 5

   Question 5. Which of these is NOT one of the prizes on the carnival's Prize Table?

   • Correct answer: Skis borrowed from the athletic department
   • A forged draft registration card and $4.13
   • A lock of hair from Hazel Brewster's head
   • Finny's icebox, hidden in the dormitory basement

   The prizes are junk scavenged from the dormitory, including the icebox, York barbells, a rope ladder, a forged draft card, and money from the Headmaster's Discretionary Benevolent Fund. No skis appear among them.

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6. 6

   Question 6. What is Finny doing when Brinker loses patience and demands that the events begin?

   • Correct answer: Cataloguing the prizes and ignoring him entirely
   • Testing the ski jump ramp with his committee
   • Arguing with Chet Douglass about the music
   • Carving designs into his cast with a pocket knife

   Finny is absorbed in his list and does not look up until the ring of boys has already closed in on Brinker and his cider.

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7. 7

   Question 7. Gene insists that the hard cider was not what made him surpass himself in the Decathlon. What does he credit instead?

   • Correct answer: The escape from the gray encroachments of 1943
   • Finny had coached him into his best condition
   • He barely tasted the cider before it ran out
   • The carnival events were too easy to strain him

   He calls the day a liberation they had torn from 1943, an afternoon of momentary, illusory, special and separate peace, and says that is what carried him.

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8. 8

   Question 8. Which of these events actually occur in Chapter 9?

   • Leper enlists in the ski troops after seeing a recruiting film.

     Happened

   • Gene travels to Leper's hiding place before the chapter ends.

     Didn't happen

   • Finny sets fire to the Iliad to open the Games.

     Happened

   • Brinker resigns from a string of school offices and committees.

     Happened

   • Gene refuses to compete in the Decathlon Finny announces.

     Didn't happen

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9. 9

   Question 9. Which of these details belong to the Winter Carnival scene?

   • Snow statues caricature the Headmaster and other adults.

     Happened

   • Phineas presides from a carved black walnut chair.

     Happened

   • The school band marches down to the park to play.

     Didn't happen

   • Chet Douglass plays the trumpet through the afternoon.

     Happened

   • Brinker wins the Decathlon and is crowned with the wreath.

     Didn't happen

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10. 10

    Question 10. What does 'browbeaten' mean as used in: 'very hard cider which he had browbeaten away from some lowerclassmen'?

    • Correct answer: Bullied or intimidated someone into giving in
    • Purchased quietly and without any bargaining
    • Borrowed with a firm promise to return it
    • Won as a wager in a game of chance

    Brinker did not buy or borrow the cider. He pressured younger boys into handing it over, which is why he then guards it so jealously.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does 'multifariously' mean as used in: 'he could at least cease to be so multifariously civilian'?

    • Correct answer: In many varied ways at once
    • In a deliberately showy manner
    • With obvious reluctance
    • In a strictly official capacity

    Brinker held offices in half a dozen school organizations, so being civilian in many different ways at once is exactly what he sets out to stop.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does 'recessional' mean as used in: 'their noises sound a dull recessional to winter'?

    • Correct answer: Music played as a procession withdraws
    • A long pause in the middle of a service
    • An echo trapped in a narrow passage
    • A signal that a storm is about to break

    A recessional closes a service as the procession files out, so the dripping drains become the exit music for a winter that is finally retreating.

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