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

2. When Pearl repeatedly asks Hester what the letter stand for, what does Hester tell her in Chapter 15?
(a) She does not give an answer.
(b) She says it stands for Able.
(c) She says it stands for Adultry
(d) She says it is a witch's mark.

3. Who is mentioned in Chapter 13 as a "foundress of a religious sect?"
(a) Hutichison.
(b) Bradstreet.
(c) Mother Theresa.
(d) Hibbins.

4. 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) Twisting branches of a dead oak.
(d) Surging wind of the coast.

5. "Its ranks were filled with gentlemen, who felt the stirrings of martial impulse" describes which group of men in the procession referred to in the title of Chapter 22?
(a) The soliders.
(b) The public officials.
(c) The clergy.
(d) The musicians.

Short Answer Questions

1. What had Dimmesdale been doing to himself?

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

3. When Pearl will not cross the brook, what does Hester tell her she can leap like?

4. How long did it take before Chillingworth died?

5. What facial expression of Chillingworth displays his true malice, which the narrator calls "his blackness" in Chapter 14?

Short Essay Questions

1. What, according to the narrator, enlivened the public holiday with "some diversity of hue?"

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

3. When Dimmesdale refuses to travel and quit his post as minister, how does Hester change his mind?

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

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

6. What kinds of thoughts occur to Dimmesdale when he sees a deacon on the way home in Chapter 20 and why?

7. Why does Hester's heart sink when she sees Dimmesdale in the procession during the public holiday?

8. 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?

9. Why, at the end of the book, is Hester making a baby garment?

10. Why does Hawthorne describe Pearl, in Chapter 19, as a "living hieroglyphic."

(see the answer keys)

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