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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What was the average size of one of the dwellings?
(a) Ten feet wide by twelve feet high.
(b) Twenty feet wide by five feet high.
(c) Five feet wide by six feet high.
(d) Ten feet wide by ten feet high.

2. What did Orwell learn had happened to Wigan Pier?
(a) It was turned into a diner.
(b) It was converted into a caravan park.
(c) It was a myth and never existed.
(d) It had been demolished.

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

4. What is the first thing a miner does when he comes up from the mine?
(a) Goes home to bathe.
(b) Drinks large quantities of water.
(c) Gargles water to get the coal dust out of his nose and mouth.
(d) Strips off his shirt and wipes his face.

5. What did Orwell say the fillers looked like?
(a) Slaves in Egypt.
(b) Wooden soldiers.
(c) Hammered metal sculpture.
(d) Hammered iron statues.

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

7. In a year, how many minors are killed at work?
(a) One in one hundred.
(b) One in twenty.
(c) One in nine hundred.
(d) One in ten thousand.

8. How did Orwell describe Mrs. Brooker?
(a) An anxious faced, obese invalid.
(b) A beautiful, tall seductress.
(c) An overweight, jolly woman.
(d) A jolly, industrious woman.

9. What was one "perk" given to miners that was actually off-set by transportation costs?
(a) Reduced cost of the coal for their houses.
(b) Free tool sharpening.
(c) Bonus for on-time work.
(d) Bonus for meeting coal goals.

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

11. What is nystagmus?
(a) A nose disease.
(b) An eye disease.
(c) A heart disease.
(d) A lung disease.

12. What is the cause of the great majority of accidents in the mine?
(a) Human error.
(b) Gas explosions.
(c) Fall of a roof.
(d) Gob fires.

13. What is a "blind back?"
(a) A house with no back door.
(b) A house with a tall fence.
(c) A house with no lavatory.
(d) A house with no fence.

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

15. How did one member of the press see Orwell's presence in Wigan?
(a) Orwell was there to vilify humanity.
(b) Orwell was a fascist.
(c) Orwell was there to snoop into poor people's lives.
(d) Orwell did not understand the suffering of the poor.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did Orwell react to the train moving into the countryside?

2. What is "traveling?"

3. What physical attributes did the fillers share?

4. With what phrase did all of Mrs. Brooker's complaints end?

5. How many people shared the bedroom in which Orwell slept at the Brookers?

(see the answer keys)

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