View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How did Little Morning determine which jar held molasses?
(a) By dipping a finger inside.
(b) By reading the label on the jar.
(c) By asking Nat.
(d) By asking her mother.

2. Why do Marse Sam and the traveling salesman go out to the veranda?
(a) To make out a requisition.
(b) To calculate how much wood from the mill the salesman can sell.
(c) To decide which plow to buy.
(d) To buy seeds for next year's plantings.

3. What term does Nat use to describe Hark's marriage to Tiny?
(a) Said three Hail Marys .
(b) Said their vows.
(c) Jumped over the broomstick.
(d) Danced at dawn.

4. What were Marse Samuel's "grander plans" for Nat?
(a) Becoming head butler.
(b) An apprenticeship in carpentry.
(c) Going to secondary school.
(d) An apprenticeship in blacksmithing.

5. Nat convinces some of his followers to join him by telling them of a "black" conqueror. About whom did Nat speak?
(a) Napoleon Bonaparte.
(b) Alexander the Great.
(c) Tamerlane.
(d) The Duke of Wellington.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Marse Samuel propose to Nat when they rode together to Jerusalem?

2. What happened when Nat and Willis went to the creek together?

3. What does Nat find in Mrs. Whitehead's library that furthers his plans for a slave uprising?

4. What does Nat see as a good omen right before he returns to the farm from his "sanctuary" after revealing his plans to his core group of followers?

5. What does the traveling salesman ask Nat to spell?

Short Essay Questions

1. Nat equates Isham to John the Baptist. Nat speaks of a warning after the incident with Isham. Is this related?

2. In Part 3, when Nat is owned by Thomas Moore, he says that he fell into the kind of save work that he had believed before could "not ever become my lot, not in a thousand lifetimes." Yet now it had become his lot. How did Nat react to that? How does this turning point relate to his earlier childhood and education, as well as his eventual killing spree?

3. Why might Part 3 be titled "Study War"? Is it appropriate?

4. In Part 2, Nat talks about Samuel Turner's tampering with a slave's destiny by educating him. Immediately afterward, he talks about what his life might have been like if he had not been the subject of Marse Samuel's "experiment." What do you think of this description of his might-have-been life? Is it something that appeals to him?

5. After Nat's fast in Part 3, he said there were two events that helped him interpret his vision of the fighting angels as a mandate to kill whites. What were those two events?

6. After Nat spells the word columbine, he lies awake that night thinking about it. He says it's a dream filled with 'inchoate promise'. What does he mean by that? How can one word be a promise?

7. Early in Part 2, the traveling salesman asks Nat to spell a word. This is the second time in the book that a spelling request has frightened Nat. What are some of the reasons Nat gives for his terror?

8. When Nat talks with Mrs. Whitehead in Part 3 after tracing the map, she alternately praises him and treats him as property, stating that she'd offered one thousand dollars for him. How did that make Nat feel?

9. One of the slaves chained by the drover tells Nat that he's "just like him." Do you think this is true? Why or why not?

10. In Part 2, when Nat baptizes Willis, he feels he's on the brink of great things, that great possibilities in his life are opening up. Yet soon after, his life changes as the slaves and eventually the plantation, including him, are sold. Is it possible that this had an effect on Nat's eventual decision to kill the whites? Why?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,087 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample