grapes of wrath

1. How does Grampa die?
(A) He has a stroke.
(B) He dies of old age.
(C) He has a heart attack.
(D) Noah kills him.

2. Why is Noah slightly deformed?
(A) As a child, Noah was run over by a combine.
(B) A local corporation dumped pollutants into the water supply.
(C) Pa tried to deliver Noah by pulling him out with his bare hands.
(D) Ma drank heavily during her pregnancy.

3. What is a “big cat”?
(A) The migrants’ nickname for a policeman
(B) A terrible dust storm
(C) The policemen’s nickname for a male Okie
(D) A machine used by the banks to evict farmers

4. During what decade did the Dust Bowl tragedy take place?
(A) The 1910s
(B) The 1930s
(C) The 1940s
(D) The 1920s

5. How many years was Tom in prison?
(A) 14
(B) 2
(C) 11
(D) 4

6. What does Uncle John give to children?
(A) Pennies
(B) Gum
(C) Wooden soldiers
(D) Cracker Jack candy

7. According to Chapter 19, who were the first Americans to settle in California?
(A) Cowboys
(B) Gold diggers
(C) Squatters
(D) Middle-class businesspeople

8. Who is given the task of burying Rose of Sharon’s stillborn child?
(A) Pa Joad
(B) Uncle John
(C) Tom
(D) Agnes Wainwright

9. What are Al’s main interests?
(A) Cars and clothes
(B) Music and girls
(C) Girls and cars
(D) Music and clothes

10. Where do the Joads leave Granma’s corpse?
(A) By the banks of a stream
(B) Under a sycamore tree
(C) A coroner’s office
(D) A hospital morgue

11. Which Joad child believes him- or herself to be the least loved by Ma and Pa?
(A) Noah
(B) Rose of Sharon
(C) Al
(D) Tom

12. What was Jim Casy’s former occupation?
(A) Truck driver
(B) Preacher
(C) Mayor
(D) Ditch digger

13. How does Jim Casy die?
(A) He kills himself out of sheer despair.
(B) He dies of starvation.
(C) He dies in a fight during a workers’ strike.
(D) He dies of heat exhaustion in the fields.

14. What do the citizens of California angrily call the migrants?
(A) Okies
(B) Bonzos
(C) Riffraff
(D) Hobos

15. At the end of the novel, who is the leader of the Joad family?
(A) Pa Joad
(B) Grampa Joad
(C) Tom Joad
(D) Ma Joad

16. Whom does Agnes Wainwright decide to marry?
(A) Al
(B) Floyd Knowles
(C) Jim Casy
(D) Tom

17. Who in the novel first proposes the idea of organizing the workers?
(A) Al
(B) Tom
(C) Jim Casy
(D) Floyd Knowles

18. Why does Pa’s dam fail?
(A) A tree falls into it.
(B) Pa uses sand when he should have used mortar.
(C) Pa builds a good dam, but he builds it in a bad place.
(D) The water simply rises too fast.

19. Why does Ruthie reveal Tom’s secret?
(A) She wants to frighten a policeman.
(B) She is jealous of her older brother.
(C) She wants to impress a girl who is picking on her.
(D) She talks in her sleep.

20. Who tells Tom his parents’ whereabouts when he arrives at their deserted farm?
(A) Mr. Huston
(B) Winifred
(C) Muley Graves
(D) Jim

21. In what year did The Grapes of Wrath win a Pulitzer Prize?
(A) 1962
(B) 1939
(C) 1940
(D) 1936

22. Why does Ma fear that Winfield will grow up to be wild and uncontrollable?
(A) Work camps are not a decent place to raise children.
(B) Since Noah left, he has been without a proper influence.
(C) Without a proper home, he will become rootless and lose his sense of the importance of family.
(D) Manual labor is not good for such a young child.

23. Why do the other children ostracize Ruthie when she first arrives at the government camp?
(A) She is caught stealing at the general store.
(B) She bullies a girl on the croquet court.
(C) She is from a large family.
(D) She is from Oklahoma.

24. At the cotton farm, where do the Joads live?
(A) In a shack
(B) In a boxcar
(C) In a culvert
(D) In a tent

25. At the end of the novel, Ma explains to Pa that some people live “in jerks,” while others live in “all one flow.” This is her way of describing an essential difference between which two groups?
(A) Tenant farmers and landowners
(B) Men and women
(C) Oklahomans and Californians
(D) Rich and poor