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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does a machine evolve in Orwell's opinion?
(a) By achieving perfection.
(b) By becoming more efficient and more foolproof.
(c) By becoming more streamlined and smaller.
(d) By becoming obsolete.

2. Who said "an army marches on its stomach?"
(a) Aristotle.
(b) Napoleon.
(c) Hitler.
(d) Homer.

3. What were the "Clothing Clubs?"
(a) Clubs in industrial towns in which unemployed men were given loans for clothing.
(b) Clubs in industrial towns in which unemployed men could buy new clothes.
(c) Clubs in industrial towns in which unemployed men could trade old clothing for new.
(d) Clubs in industrial towns in which unemployed men could send their wives for clothes.

4. What class did Orwell say he was born into?
(a) The lower-middle-upper-class.
(b) The middle-upper class.
(c) The lower-upper-middle-class.
(d) The middle-upper-middle class.

5. Why did Orwell say Socialism had not taken hold in England despite its common-sense doctrine?
(a) The wrong propaganda.
(b) The lack of political organization in the pary.
(c) The poor working conditions at the mines.
(d) The military police.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who did Orwell believe was doing the best work for the unemployed in the thirties?

2. How did unemployment affect the life of the married man?

3. In Orwell's opinion, what was one way the working class man differed from the middle class man?

4. What did Orwell cite as a reason class hatred seemed to be diminishing in the late 1930's?

5. Who was John Galsworthy?

Short Essay Questions

1. What story did Orwell relate about the beer bottle? How did this support his dislike of the working class body? How did he say he was able to overcome this dislike?

2. What one overarching generalization was Orwell taught about the lower classes of people in his town? What author did Orwell quote in support of this theory, and what did the author say?

3. How did Orwell explain the attitude toward the family in a working class society? How did it differ in his opinion from the middle class man and his family?

4. How did Orwell see the clash between the Socialist idea of the machine state and the working people Socialism wished to bring into the fold?

5. What did Orwell do in order to learn more about the working class conditions he had previously not understood? How did he go about trying to be a part of the working class and see the world through their eyes?

6. What was a "shabby-genteel" family in Orwell's opinion? What were some of the characteristics of a shabby-genteel family?

7. What was the Means Test? Why did people dislike the Means Test?

8. What was the employment situation in Wigan and Sheffield, the two towns Orwell wrote about?

9. How did Orwell argue against the common misconception that the poor and unemployed are simply lazy?

10. Why did Orwell think the working class people were rarely pure Socialists?

(see the answer keys)

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