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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. 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 working with the payroll departments.
(d) By listening to talk around the lunch table.

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

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

4. Who were the fillers?
(a) The men digging coal from the ground.
(b) The foremen.
(c) The men moving coal on the elevators.
(d) The men shoveling coal onto the conveyer belt.

5. What does "one up, one down" mean?
(a) One room on each storey.
(b) One room in front of another.
(c) One ground floor, one basement.
(d) One room with a higher ceiling than the other.

6. What was one problem faced by the tenant moving from slum housing into new housing?
(a) The noise level.
(b) The higher expense.
(c) The lack of medical care.
(d) The outdoor plumbing.

7. What is "traveling?"
(a) Going up and down in the elevator.
(b) The unpaid time it takes to get from the job site to the eating area.
(c) Getting to and from the mine from the miner's home.
(d) The unpaid time it takes to crawl through the tunnels to the job site.

8. What other types of expenses were taken from the miner's pay?
(a) Insurance, uniform rental, hospital fees.
(b) Hospital fees, tools, uniform rental.
(c) Insurance, lamp rental, union fees.
(d) Uniform rental, tools, union fees.

9. What point was Orwell making in his explanation of the coal miner's pay?
(a) They are actually paid very little.
(b) They are paid the same as any other laborer.
(c) They are paid more than the mayor of the town.
(d) They are actually well paid.

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

11. What is a cage?
(a) A steel box in which supplies and personal belongings are kept.
(b) A steel box in which coal is transported to the surface.
(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. How was the coal miner getter paid?
(a) By the hour.
(b) By the week.
(c) By the coalcar load.
(d) By the ton extracted from the mine.

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

14. What were newspaper canvassers?
(a) They were door-to-door surveyers for the census.
(b) They were door-to-door pollsters for the political candidate.
(c) They were door-to-door salesmen selling newspaper subscriptions.
(d) They were door-to-door advertisement salesmen.

15. What is "buttons down the back?"
(a) A death story told to novices just entering the mines.
(b) Permanent scabs on vertebrae from scraping the spine on beams.
(c) A joke miners play on each other.
(d) The type of shirt worn to keep dust from getting into clothing.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does a miner bathe after dinner?

2. Why did Orwell believe the return trip through the tunnels was worse than the initial one?

3. Why does every miner have a blue scar on his nose and forehead?

4. Which towns did Orwell note for their approach to tearing down slum housing and rebuilding?

5. When they had something to eat, what did the fillers consume?

(see the answer keys)

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