To Kill a Mockingbird, Part Two quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. What dare finally sends Jem onto the Radley property during the first summer of the novel?

   • That he spend an entire night inside the Radley front yard
   • Correct answer: That he walk up and touch the side of the Radley house
   • That he push a note through one of the Radley shutters
   • That he knock on the Radley front door and then run off

   Dill bets The Gray Ghost against two Tom Swifts that Jem will get no farther than the gate. Jem sprints in, slaps the side of the house and runs back, and the children think they see an inside shutter move.

   Read the passage
2. 2

   Question 2. Why does Miss Caroline tell Scout that her father must stop teaching her?

   • She believes Scout copied her reading out of Jem's schoolbooks
   • She has been told the county forbids parents from teaching
   • Correct answer: She thinks it is best to begin reading with a fresh mind
   • She assumes Atticus is too tired at night to teach anyone

   Miss Caroline is applying a new method she learned in college and treats Scout's reading as damage to be undone. Atticus's response is not to argue with her but to teach Scout to see the day from the teacher's side.

   Read the passage
3. 3

   Question 3. What simple trick does Atticus teach Scout after her disastrous first day of school?

   • Never argue with anyone older than you are, in public or at home
   • Let Calpurnia settle every quarrel before it grows
   • Answer an insult with silence and walk away from it
   • Correct answer: Climb into another person's skin and walk around in it

   Atticus tells her you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. The lesson is applied again and again in Part One, to Walter Cunningham, Mrs. Dubose and finally Boo Radley.

   Read the passage
4. 4

   Question 4. What does Miss Maudie Atkinson tell Scout about Arthur Radley?

   • That he died years ago and the family hid the fact
   • Correct answer: That he is alive, and that the stories are mostly gossip
   • That his father chained him to a bed in the back room
   • That he leaves the house each night after moonset

   Miss Maudie insists on his real name and says she knows he is alive because she has not seen him carried out. She traces the horror stories to neighborhood talk rather than anything Arthur did.

   Read the passage
5. 5

   Question 5. What does Jem discover when he sneaks back for the pants he lost at the Radley fence?

   • They were gone, and Nathan Radley had taken them inside
   • They were still tangled in the wire exactly where he left them
   • Correct answer: They had been folded over the fence and roughly sewn up
   • They had been nailed to the Radley gate as a warning

   The crooked mending is the first unmistakable sign that someone inside the house is watching over the children rather than threatening them. Jem tells Scout it was like somebody could read his mind.

   Read the passage
6. 6

   Question 6. What reason does Nathan Radley give for filling the knot-hole with cement?

   • He says the children have been trespassing on his property
   • He says his brother had been hiding money in the hollow
   • He says Atticus asked him to put a stop to the game
   • Correct answer: He says the tree is dying, and sick trees are plugged

   Atticus looks at the tree and reports that the leaves are green and full with no brown patches, so the tree is perfectly healthy. Jem understands that an adult has lied to him on purpose, and he cries about it.

   Read the passage
7. 7

   Question 7. How does Scout end up wrapped in a blanket on the night of Miss Maudie's fire?

   • Miss Maudie hands it to her before the men arrive
   • Atticus brings it down from the house while she waits
   • Correct answer: Boo Radley slips it around her without her noticing it
   • Mr. Nathan Radley gives it to her at his own gate

   Scout is so absorbed in the fire that she never feels it happen, and Atticus points out the blanket over hot chocolate afterward. Jem then blurts out every secret about the knot-hole and the pants.

   Read the passage
8. 8

   Question 8. What does Atticus tell Scout when she asks whether they are going to win Tom Robinson's case?

   • That he expects a clean acquittal once the jury has heard him out
   • That the judge will likely throw the case out first
   • That she is too young to be told anything about it
   • Correct answer: No, but being licked beforehand is no reason not to try

   He answers flatly that they are not going to win. He takes the case anyway because otherwise he could not hold up his head in town or ask his own children to mind him.

   Read the passage
9. 9

   Question 9. According to Miss Maudie, why did Atticus stop shooting?

   • His eyesight failed and he could not aim a rifle any more
   • Correct answer: He decided his marksmanship was an unfair advantage
   • Sheriff Heck Tate asked him to leave guns to the law
   • He lost a bet at the Landing and swore off hunting

   Miss Maudie says he put his gun down when he realized God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. She adds that people in their right minds never take pride in their talents.

   Read the passage
10. 10

    Question 10. What was Mrs. Dubose really doing during the month Jem read aloud to her?

    • Correct answer: Breaking her morphine addiction before she died
    • Teaching herself to read again after losing her sight
    • Punishing Jem in the only way an invalid could manage
    • Waiting for Atticus to come and rewrite her will for her

    The alarm clock was set a few minutes later each day, stretching the time between doses. Atticus says her whole mind and body were concentrated on that clock, and that she died free of the drug.

    Read the passage
11. 11

    Question 11. Which of these events actually happen in Part One?

    • Scout hears someone inside the Radley house laughing after the tire rolls her into the yard.

      Happened

    • Miss Maudie tells Scout that Boo Radley's real name is Arthur and that he is still alive.

      Happened

    • Atticus tells the children that Mr. Radley kept Boo chained to a bed for years.

      Didn't happen

    • Jem and Scout build a snowman out of dirt and snow that resembles one of their neighbors.

      Happened

    • Scout knocks Cecil Jacobs down in the schoolyard for insulting Atticus.

      Didn't happen

    • Sheriff Heck Tate shoots the mad dog himself after Atticus refuses to take the rifle.

      Didn't happen

    Read the passage
12. 12

    Question 12. What does 'entailment' mean where Scout reports that "Entailment was only a part of Mr. Cunningham's vexations"?

    • A mortgage taken out against a year's cotton crop
    • Correct answer: A legal limit on how land can be inherited or sold
    • A tax the county charges farmers who own no livestock
    • An agreement to pay a lawyer in goods instead of money

    An entailment ties land to a line of heirs so it cannot simply be sold off. It is why Mr. Cunningham has acres he cannot cash in and pays Atticus in stovewood and turnip greens.

    Read the passage
13. 13

    Question 13. What does 'philippic' mean where Scout says "we were followed up the sidewalk by a philippic on our family's moral degeneration"?

    • Correct answer: A bitter, sustained verbal attack
    • A rambling story with no clear point
    • A formal written complaint to a court
    • A whispered rumor passed along a street

    The word comes from the orator Demosthenes and his speeches denouncing Philip of Macedon. Scout uses it to describe the tirade Mrs. Dubose delivers at the children's backs.

    Read the passage