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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 is Hibbins related to the Governor?
(a) No relation.
(b) His sister-in-law.
(c) His sister.
(d) His daughter.

2. What is the title of Chapter 17?
(a) The Pastor and His Parishoner.
(b) The Pastor and His Lover.
(c) The Pastor and His Parish.
(d) The Pastor and the Thief.

3. Dimmesdale's voice is compared to what natural phenomenon in Chapter 23?
(a) Swelling waves of the sea.
(b) Patter of raindrops on the roof.
(c) Surging wind of the coast.
(d) Twisting branches of a dead oak.

4. What is Dimmesdale's "own red stigma"?
(a) His guilt.
(b) An "A" carved in his chest.
(c) A scarlet letter he wears underneath his jacket.
(d) Pearl.

5. Where does the minister go in the beginning of Chapter 12?
(a) To the scaffold.
(b) To Hester's.
(c) To church.
(d) To the governor's.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where does Dimmesdale imagine a "scarlet token?"

2. Hester says that Pearl is "strange" and what at first?

3. Next to whom is Hester Prynne eventually buried?

4. How many years have passed so far in this novel, in Chapter 13?

5. Which of the following creatures is not mentioned while Pearl plays on the shore?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why, in Chapter 18, does Hester remove the scarlet letter and fling it into a brook?

2. When Hester calls for Pearl to come to her in Chapter 19, Pearl will not move from her spot in the woods. What prevents her from going to her mother?

3. In Chapter 14, why is Chillingworth in the woods?

4. How does the narrator describe the public officials in Chapter 22, many of whom were real historical figures (figures such as Bradstreet, Endicott, etc.)?

5. In Chapter 16, Hester changes her story to Pearl about the significance of the scarlet letter. What does she say about the letter in Chapter 16?

6. Why does Hester go to meet Dimmesdale in the woods?

7. Describe the three suspected causes of the "A" carved into Dimmesdale's chest.

8. In Chapter 14, what does Hester ask of Chillingworth?

9. What does Pearl do with the seaweed she finds, and what does it show about her as a character?

10. How does Hawthorne describe Dimmesdale, either physically or emotionally, at the beginning of Chapter 13?

(see the answer keys)

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