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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the first thing a miner does when he comes up from the mine?

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

3. What is a "dataller?"

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

5. What does "back to back" mean?

Short Essay Questions

1. How did Orwell describe his room at the Brookers?

2. Who were the newspaper canvassers, and what were their jobs?

3. Who were some of the boarders at the Brooker's rooming house? How were thought of by the Brookers?

4. Who were the Brookers? How did Orwell describe them? What did they look like? Behave like?

5. What were the coal mines like for Orwell? How did he see the men who mined the coal?

6. Orwell stated that the Brookers were typical of most people in the modern world. What characteristics did he point out as typical?

7. What were the three terms Orwell used to describe the construction of the substandard housing in Wigan and Sheffield? How are they each affected by the lavatories available to them?

8. Why did Orwell believe it was important to understand the working conditions of the miners? What did he see as the larger story?

9. What were some of the common conditions in the houses Orwell studied for his book?

10. Why did Orwell leave the Brookers? Where did he go? How did he respond to his train trip leaving town?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Orwell used his childhood and upbringing as an example of social class, class prejudices and class values. Discuss the differences Orwell saw between the bourgeois, the lower-middle class and the working class in England in the 1930's. Why was this distinction between the classes important to Orwell in his discussion of Socialism?

Essay Topic 2

In the northern, industrialized parts of England, coal was a prime commodity. What role did Orwell see coal playing in the industrialized world? How did this compare with miners' wages? On what did he blame the inequities he witnessed? Explain.

Essay Topic 3

In his descriptions of unemployment in the middle and working classes, Orwell explained that the men and their families in each class had a vastly different reaction to the condition. Orwell contended that the working class man was better equipped to lose his job and become unemployed than the middle class man. What were some of the reasons Orwell cited for this? Can you find proof in studying the middle and working classes to support Orwell's contention that one class was better equipped than another to be out of work?

(see the answer keys)

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