East of Eden, Chapter 49 quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Why does Adam insist on meeting Aron's train?

   • He promised Abra's father he'd come along
   • Correct answer: He wants to see how college has changed Aron
   • He plans to tell Aron to leave Stanford
   • He needs Aron to help at the ice plant

   Adam will not be talked out of going. He wants to see Aron get off the train and judge what change experience has made, even though Lee notes Aron has been gone only a couple of months.

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2. 2

   Question 2. What does Aron tell Cal he wants to do instead of college?

   • Open a small shop on Main Street
   • Join the draft board with Adam
   • Partner with Will Hamilton on beans
   • Correct answer: Take over the ranch and just get along

   Aron says he does not like college and thought he would like to take over the ranch. He wants little money, has not told Adam, and Cal tells him to sleep on it and finish the term.

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3. 3

   Question 3. How did Cal get the fifteen thousand dollars he wraps for Adam?

   • Correct answer: Bean futures bought with Will Hamilton
   • A loan from the Monterey County Bank
   • Profit taken from Adam's ice plant
   • Cash from selling the leftover lettuce

   Cal tells Adam that he and Mr. Hamilton made it on beans, buying futures at five cents before the price jumped. Will Hamilton also had to vouch to the bank that a seventeen-year-old honestly owned the bills.

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4. 4

   Question 4. What reason does Adam give for refusing Cal's money?

   • He already recovered the lettuce loss
   • He wants Cal to spend it on college
   • Correct answer: He will not take a profit on the war
   • He is angry that Cal bought champagne

   Adam sits on the draft board and says he signs boys out who will not come back untorn. He tells Cal to give the money back and asks, "Son, do you think I could take a profit on that?"

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5. 5

   Question 5. After refusing the money, what does Adam say he would rather have from Cal?

   • Cal's work on the draft-board records
   • Help running the ice plant next week
   • Correct answer: The pride he says Aron takes in his work
   • A written apology to the bean farmers

   Adam thanks Cal for the thought and then says he would have been so happy if Cal could have given him what Aron has: pride in the thing he is doing. He asks for a good life, not the bills.

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6. 6

   Question 6. What does Lee tell Cal in the bedroom after the rejection?

   • Aron must be told to leave the house
   • Adam will accept the money in the morning
   • Cal should take the bills back to Will
   • Correct answer: Adam had no choice, but Cal still has one

   Lee says the refusal was Adam's nature and the only way he knew. Adam did not have a choice; Cal does. Cal pretends Lee is making a fuss about nothing and then goes to apologize.

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7. 7

   Question 7. How does Cal get out of the house that night without Lee stopping him?

   • Correct answer: He slips out the kitchen and over the garden fence
   • He walks out the front door while Lee still cooks
   • He waits until Lee goes over to Reynaud's bakery
   • He asks Adam to send Lee to the draft-board office

   Cal opens the front door a crack, sees Lee on the steps opposite the French Laundry, then goes out the kitchen, through the waning garden, over a high fence and a plank across the slough.

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8. 8

   Question 8. What do Sergeant Dane and Corporal Kemp agree to do for the boy at the recruiting office?

   • Hold him until his father can be reached
   • Correct answer: Call him eighteen and stick to that age
   • Send him home until the next draft list
   • Make him wait for an officer's approval

   Dane looks at the tired, beautiful boy, guesses he is running away from love, and tells him they will say he is eighteen. Kemp's rule is that if they are big enough, they are old enough.

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9. 9

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

   • Cal wraps fifteen thousand-dollar gold certificates in tissue and red ribbon for Adam.

     Happened

     Cal counts the fifteen new bills, wraps them in tissue and ties them with red ribbon; at dinner he tells Adam it is fifteen thousand dollars.

   • Aron tells Adam at the Thanksgiving table that he is quitting Stanford.

     Didn't happen

     Aron tells only Cal, the night he comes home, that he does not want to go on at college; to Adam he says only that he has been thinking about it and wonders.

   • Cal pays Joe Garrisiere to send three bottles of champagne to Adam.

     Happened

     At Berges and Garrisiere, Cal says they will pay for the champagne and tells Joe Garrisiere to send three bottles over to their father.

   • Adam accepts the money after Cal explains they paid farmers extra.

     Didn't happen

     Even after Cal says they paid the farmers two cents a pound over the market, Adam says he does not want the money.

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10. 10

    Question 10. Which of these details actually appear in Chapter 49?

    • Cal draws hundreds of tightening spirals on his blotting pad.

      Happened

      Alone in his room after the dinner, Cal draws tight little spirals on his blotting pad, hundreds of them, smaller and smaller.

    • Lee sits on the front steps, and Cal sneaks out through the kitchen garden.

      Happened

      Cal sees Lee sitting on the front steps in his heavy coat, so he slips out the kitchen door through Lee's waning kitchen garden.

    • Lee follows Cal across the slough and stops him before he finds Aron.

      Didn't happen

      Lee is sitting on the front steps when Cal slips out the back; Cal crosses the slough alone and sees Aron coming toward him under a streetlight.

    • At the San Jose recruiting office, a boy is told to list himself as eighteen.

      Happened

      At the San Jose recruiting office, Sergeant Dane tells a tired-looking boy they will say he is eighteen and stick to it, and hands him a form.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does 'coagulate' mean as used in: 'His thoughts would not coagulate.'?

    • Correct answer: Clot or come together into a mass
    • Grow louder and more violent
    • Fade until nothing is left of them
    • Scatter in several directions at once

    Aron's thoughts will not coagulate, meaning they will not gather or clot into a usable plan against the soft pressure of Adam's ambition for him.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What does 'calamity' mean as used in: 'a feeling of calamity, of destruction in the air'?

    • Mild embarrassment in mixed company
    • Quiet satisfaction after a heavy meal
    • A formal toast at a family celebration
    • Correct answer: Sudden disaster that brings great ruin

    When Adam folds the tissue back over the bills, Cal catches a feeling of calamity and destruction and a weight of sickness, the sense that the gift has become a disaster.

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13. 13

    Question 13. What does 'dallying' mean as used in: 'He was dallying with the youngest Ricci girl and she lived in San Jose.'?

    • Waiting in line for a train ticket
    • Correct answer: Spending time in a casual romance
    • Drilling recruits in a side yard
    • Hiding from officers after hours

    Sergeant Axel Dane knows his way into the San Jose posting partly because he is dallying with the youngest Ricci girl, who lives there: a casual involvement, not official business.

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