To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 19 quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. What physical problem does Tom Robinson have when trying to be sworn in as a witness?

   • His right hand is bandaged from a recent injury
   • He stutters so badly that he cannot repeat the oath
   • Correct answer: His useless left hand slips off the Bible onto the table
   • He is too nervous to stand up and face the jury box at all

   Tom's left arm was mangled in a cotton gin accident as a child and is useless. He has to lift it onto the Bible, but it slips off and hits the clerk's table; he is trying again when Judge Taylor tells him that will do.

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2. 2

   Question 2. Who does Tom Robinson work for?

   • Correct answer: Mr. Link Deas
   • Judge Taylor
   • Bob Ewell
   • Atticus Finch

   Tom testifies that he works for Mr. Link Deas, picking cotton in season and doing yard work in the fall and winter. Mr. Deas later stands up in court to vouch for Tom's character.

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3. 3

   Question 3. Why did Tom Robinson stop to help Mayella Ewell with chores?

   • Mr. Link Deas sent him over to work in her yard
   • Correct answer: He could see she had no one else to help her
   • He hoped to earn favor with her father, Bob Ewell
   • She paid him a nickel each time he came in

   Tom testifies that he helped Mayella because he could tell she had no one else. Her siblings never helped, and Bob Ewell was useless. Tom never received payment.

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4. 4

   Question 4. How did Mayella ensure she and Tom would be alone in the house?

   • She told the children to go down and pick through the town dump
   • She waited until her father had gone off to the woods for the day
   • She sent her brothers and sisters off to school for the whole day
   • Correct answer: She saved nickels and sent all seven children to buy ice cream

   Mayella planned the encounter by saving seven nickels over a whole year and sending all of her younger siblings to town to buy ice cream, so that she and Tom would be completely alone.

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5. 5

   Question 5. What false reason did Mayella give Tom for inviting him inside?

   • Correct answer: She wanted him to fix a broken door
   • She asked him to patch the leaking roof
   • She needed help lighting the stove
   • She asked him to chop up an old chiffarobe

   Mayella told Tom she needed him to fix a door hinge inside the house, but when he got inside, there was nothing wrong with the door. It was a pretense to get him alone.

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6. 6

   Question 6. What did Mayella do to Tom once they were alone?

   • She ordered him to leave the house at once
   • She accused him of stealing her nickels
   • Correct answer: She grabbed his legs, hugged him, and kissed him
   • She screamed for her father to come help

   While Tom stood on a chair reaching for a box, Mayella grabbed him round the legs; when he got down she hugged him round the waist, then reached up and kissed him on the side of the face. Tom tried to get out.

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7. 7

   Question 7. What disturbing implication does Mayella's remark that "what her papa do to her don’t count" carry?

   • That her father is an alcoholic
   • Correct answer: That her father sexually abuses her
   • That her father forces her to work instead of attending school
   • That her father beats the children regularly

   When Mayella says she has never kissed a grown man before and that what her father does to her "don't count," it strongly implies Bob Ewell sexually abuses his daughter, adding a tragic dimension to her situation.

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8. 8

   Question 8. How does Bob Ewell react when he sees Mayella with Tom through the window?

   • He bursts through the front door and attacks Tom
   • He orders Tom off the place and chases him down the road
   • He calmly sends one of the children for the sheriff
   • Correct answer: He screams obscenities and threatens to kill Mayella

   Bob Ewell hollers through the window, calls Mayella a whore, and threatens to kill her; according to Tom, Ewell was talking and looking at Mayella. Tom runs so fast he does not know what happens next.

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9. 9

   Question 9. Why does Tom run from the Ewell house?

   • Correct answer: Because as a Black man alone with a white woman, he knows no explanation will be believed
   • Because he hears Mr. Heck Tate's car coming down the road toward the house
   • Because he knows he has hurt Mayella and wants to escape before he is caught
   • Because Mayella orders him out of the house once her father starts hollering

   Tom runs not from guilt but from survival instinct. As a Black man in 1930s Alabama, he understands that being found alone with a white woman means certain danger regardless of the truth.

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10. 10

    Question 10. What statement does Tom make during cross-examination that shocks the courtroom?

    • He accuses Bob Ewell of lying
    • Correct answer: He says he felt sorry for Mayella
    • He admits to being inside the Ewell house before
    • He says Mayella offered to pay him

    Tom's admission that he felt "right sorry" for Mayella violates the racial hierarchy. A Black man expressing pity for a white woman implies social equality, which outrages the white spectators.

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11. 11

    Question 11. How does Mr. Gilmer treat Tom Robinson during cross-examination?

    • With sympathy, gently questioning him about his injured arm
    • With professional respect, as he treated his own witnesses
    • With indifference and boredom, hurrying through his questions
    • Correct answer: With contempt, calling him "boy" and sneering at his answers

    Mr. Gilmer's cross-examination is deliberately demeaning. He calls Tom "boy," speaks with a sneering tone, and treats every response with undisguised contempt designed to strip Tom of his dignity.

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12. 12

    Question 12. Why does Dill begin crying during the trial?

    • He is frightened by the angry crowd pressing into the balcony
    • He feels sorry for Mayella after hearing about her lonely life
    • Correct answer: He is sickened by the contemptuous way Mr. Gilmer speaks to Tom
    • He is sick from the heat of the crowded and airless courtroom

    Dill cries not over the facts of the case but over the way Mr. Gilmer dehumanizes Tom through his tone and language. As an outsider, Dill perceives the casual cruelty that Maycomb's residents have become numb to.

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13. 13

    Question 13. Why doesn't Scout fully understand why Dill is so upset?

    • She is too young to follow most of what happens at the trial
    • Correct answer: She has grown up surrounded by casual racism and is desensitized to it
    • She is angry at Dill for making her miss the rest of the trial
    • She was not paying attention during the cross-examination

    Scout has lived in Maycomb her entire life and barely registers the contemptuous treatment of Tom because she has heard similar language and tones all her life. Dill, as a summer visitor, hears it with fresh ears.

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14. 14

    Question 14. What prior conviction does Tom Robinson honestly reveal during his testimony?

    • Theft of livestock
    • Trespassing on the Ewell property
    • Correct answer: Disorderly conduct from a fight
    • Public intoxication

    Tom openly admits to a prior conviction for disorderly conduct — a fight he got into. Atticus brings this out to demonstrate Tom's honesty and willingness to tell the truth even about unflattering details.

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