To Kill a Mockingbird, AmLit Recap quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Atticus tells Jem "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." According to Miss Maudie, why?

   • Because the Radleys keep mockingbirds caged behind their house
   • Because Jem is not yet a good enough shot to hit one cleanly
   • Because mockingbirds are protected by Alabama law in that season
   • Correct answer: Because they do no harm and only sing for the people who hear them

   Miss Maudie explains that mockingbirds do not eat gardens or nest in corncribs; they only make music, which is why killing one is a sin.

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2. 2

   Question 2. What actually breaks up the mob outside the Maycomb jail?

   • Correct answer: Scout talks to Mr. Cunningham about his son and his entailment
   • Atticus threatens the men with a charge of disturbing the peace
   • Heck Tate arrives with a rifle and orders the men to go on home
   • Mr. Underwood fires a warning shot from his upstairs window above

   Scout's small talk forces Walter Cunningham to see himself as one man with a son rather than as part of a crowd, and he tells the others to clear out.

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3. 3

   Question 3. What does Atticus establish about Bob Ewell by handing him a pen and an envelope?

   • That he had been convicted of assault in Abbottsville before
   • Correct answer: That he is left-handed, the hand that marked Mayella's face
   • That he could not have seen the room from outside the window
   • That he was drunk on the evening of November twenty-first

   Ewell signs with his left hand. Mayella's injuries were on the right side of her face, which a left-handed attacker would produce.

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4. 4

   Question 4. Why could Tom Robinson not have choked Mayella as she describes?

   • He is far too slight a man to have overpowered a girl Mayella's size
   • He had been locked in the county jail for thirty days at that time
   • Correct answer: His left arm is twelve inches shorter and hangs dead at his side
   • He was working in Mr. Link Deas's field on the evening in question

   Tom's left arm was caught in a cotton gin as a boy. He cannot get two hands around anyone's throat, which the sheriff's own testimony requires.

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5. 5

   Question 5. Which of Tom Robinson's answers costs him the most in that courtroom?

   • That he had once served thirty days for disorderly conduct
   • That he ran from the Ewell place instead of standing still
   • Correct answer: That he had felt sorry for Mayella and helped her for nothing
   • That he called Mayella by her first name while on the stand

   Saying he felt sorry for a white woman places him above her in the town's code, and the spectators react to it at once.

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6. 6

   Question 6. What does the month of reading to Mrs. Dubose teach Jem about courage?

   • Correct answer: He learns she broke a morphine habit so she could die owing nobody
   • He learns Atticus had quietly been paying for her medicine all along
   • He learns she had once been a close friend of his mother's in Montgomery
   • He learns she kept a Confederate Army pistol hidden among her shawls

   Atticus tells Jem afterward that real courage is beginning something you know you are licked at and seeing it through, and calls her the bravest person he ever knew.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What happens to Tom Robinson after the verdict?

   • He is freed after Bob Ewell withdraws the family's complaint
   • Correct answer: He is shot climbing the prison fence during the exercise period
   • The appeal succeeds and the Governor commutes his sentence
   • He dies of pneumonia at Enfield Prison Farm before the appeal

   Atticus reports seventeen bullet holes. The guards fired as Tom went over the fence in the prison yard, well before the appeal could be heard.

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8. 8

   Question 8. Why does Heck Tate insist that "Bob Ewell fell on his knife."?

   • He is protecting Atticus's reputation in the coming election year
   • He believes Jem acted in clear self-defense and wants it on the record
   • He has no other suspect and wants the case closed before morning
   • Correct answer: He will not drag the shy man who saved the children into the limelight

   Tate tells Atticus that taking the one man who did the town a service and dragging him into the limelight would itself be a sin.

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9. 9

   Question 9. What does Scout finally do while standing on the Radley porch?

   • She promises Boo that she and Jem will visit him every afternoon
   • She works out that Nathan Radley had been leaving the gifts all along
   • Correct answer: She sees her own street and her childhood from Boo's point of view
   • She leaves a thank-you note for Boo in the mended knot-hole

   Looking down the street from his porch, she replays the fire, the mad dog and the summers as Boo saw them, and decides that just standing there was enough.

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10. 10

    Question 10. Jem announces, "There's four kinds of folks in the world." What is Scout's reply?

    • Correct answer: She answers that there is just one kind of folks, and that is folks
    • She says background means how long a family has been reading and writing
    • She ranks the families by money and asks where the Finches would fit in
    • She agrees with him but adds the Chinese and the Cajuns to his list

    Jem is describing how Maycomb actually works; Scout's answer is the novel's argument against it, and it sends Jem into one of his declines.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does "temerity" mean in Atticus's summation: "who had the unmitigated temerity to 'feel sorry' for a white woman"?

    • Physical strength out of proportion to size
    • Correct answer: Reckless boldness to do what the rules forbid
    • A quiet talent for changing another's opinion
    • A habit of apologizing before speaking at all

    Atticus is being bitterly ironic: Tom's nerve consisted only of pitying a poor white girl, which the code of the town treats as an outrage.

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12. 12

    Question 12. What is an "entailment," the word Scout uses at the jail when she asks, "How's your entailment gettin' along?"

    • An arrangement for renting farmland from a neighbor for one season
    • A debt owed to a country doctor that is paid off in farm produce
    • A county tax charged on livestock kept outside the town limits
    • Correct answer: A legal tie-up that keeps an owner from selling his land freely

    Mr. Cunningham's land is entailed, which is why he can pay Atticus only in stovewood, hickory nuts and turnip greens.

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13. 13

    Question 13. What does "acquiescence" mean here: "We were accustomed to prompt, if not always cheerful acquiescence to Atticus's instructions"?

    • Eager, enthusiastic agreement with a plan
    • Correct answer: Going along with an order without protest
    • Open refusal expressed in a polite manner
    • Careful study of a rule before obeying it

    Scout means the children usually obeyed even when they did not want to, which is why Jem's flat refusal to leave the jail is so startling.

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14. 14

    Question 14. Which of these events actually happen in Part One?

    • Jem finds his torn pants folded over the fence and crudely mended.

      Happened

    • Atticus shoots a rabid dog in the street near the Radley house.

      Happened

    • Jem and Scout finally see Boo Radley sitting out in his porch swing.

      Didn't happen

    • Miss Maudie's house burns down on the coldest night of the winter.

      Happened

    • Atticus teaches Jem and Scout to shoot their new air rifles himself.

      Didn't happen

    • Mrs. Dubose leaves Jem a single camellia in a candy box.

      Happened

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15. 15

    Question 15. Which of these events actually happen in Part Two?

    • Calpurnia takes Jem and Scout to First Purchase African M.E. Church.

      Happened

    • Bob Ewell stops Atticus on the post office corner and spits in his face.

      Happened

    • The jury acquits Tom Robinson after several hours of argument.

      Didn't happen

    • Atticus wins Tom a new trial on appeal before the Governor rules.

      Didn't happen

    • Aunt Alexandra moves into the Finch house to stay for a while.

      Happened

    • Link Deas warns Bob Ewell to leave Helen Robinson alone.

      Happened

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