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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who were the only permanent lodgers at the Brookers?
(a) Mr. Reilly and Mr. Orwell.
(b) Mr. Reilly and Mr. Simons.
(c) Mr. Reilly and the Irish miner with one hand.
(d) Mr. Reilly and a man named Joe.

2. What was offered a very few of the miners in the better built mines?
(a) A quart of water.
(b) A hot meal.
(c) A check cashing facility.
(d) A pithead bath.

3. How did Orwell come to understand the discrepancies in pay for miners?
(a) By studing pay checks and bank accounts.
(b) By interviewing miners.
(c) By listening to talk around the lunch table.
(d) By working with the payroll departments.

4. How did Orwell say he was received by the people he spoke with about their housing?
(a) With kindness and good food.
(b) With hostility and suspicion.
(c) With curiosity and suspicion.
(d) With courtesy and good nature.

5. Who wrote "The Coal Scuttle?"
(a) Mr. Albert Hall, Mayor of Chelsey, Yorkshire.
(b) Mr. Paul McCartney, Mayor of Barnsley, Yorkshire.
(c) Mr. John Abbott, Mayor of Chelsey, Yorkshire.
(d) Mr. Joseph Jones, Mayor of Barnsley, Yorkshire.

6. How did Orwell describe Mr. Brooker?
(a) An aggressive, manly, attractive fellow.
(b) A small boned, angry, crippled man.
(c) An ugly, offensive, odd smelling man.
(d) A dark, sour, small boned, filthy man.

7. How many people shared the bedroom in which Orwell slept at the Brookers?
(a) Seven.
(b) Five.
(c) Three.
(d) Four.

8. How was the coal miner getter paid?
(a) By the coalcar load.
(b) By the hour.
(c) By the ton extracted from the mine.
(d) By the week.

9. What is a "gob fire?"
(a) A spontaneously generating fire.
(b) A spontaneous heat problem.
(c) A cigarette fire.
(d) A coal fire.

10. At what point did Orwell leave the Brooker's boarding house?
(a) When he found there was a full chamber pot under the breakfast table.
(b) When all of his belongings were stolen.
(c) When his wallet was stolen.
(d) When he had enough of the other men sharing his room.

11. What is a cage?
(a) A steel box in which coal is transported to the surface.
(b) A steel box in which supplies and personal belongings are kept.
(c) A steel box that is lowered at a fast rate into the caverns of the mine.
(d) A steel box in which the foreman rides through the caverns.

12. What did Mr. Brooker do while grumbling that it was "women's work?"
(a) Clean the bathrooms and cook oatmeal for dinner.
(b) Peel potatoes and clean house.
(c) Shop for groceries and mend curtains.
(d) Watch the television in the middle of the day.

13. How did Orwell describe the meals at the Brooker's house?
(a) "Uniformly pitiful."
(b) "Abjectly woeful."
(c) "Pitifully disgusting."
(d) "Uniformly disgusting."

14. What was the most understandable cause of accidents in a mine?
(a) Exhaustion.
(b) Gas explosions.
(c) Collapsing roofs.
(d) Cancer.

15. What were the first sounds Orwell heard in the morning when he woke at the Brookers?
(a) The sound of Mrs. Brooker bustling around the kitchen.
(b) The sound of hammering at the house next door.
(c) The sound of birds chirping in the trees.
(d) The sound of mill girls' clogs down the cobbled street.

Short Answer Questions

1. What were "caravan dwellings?"

2. How long were the fillers on the job during their shifts?

3. Who were the fillers?

4. What were newspaper canvassers?

5. What physical attributes did the fillers share?

(see the answer keys)

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