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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. Dimmesdale learns that he is preach what important sermon?
(a) The Inauguration sermon.
(b) Hester's marriage sermon.
(c) Chillingworth's funeral sermon.
(d) The Election sermon.

2. Who in the audience taunts Hester and Pearl at the appearance of Dimmesdale?
(a) Bellingham.
(b) Brackett.
(c) Hibbins.
(d) Chillingworth.

3. What does Hester tell Dimmesdale about Chillingworth in Chapter 17?
(a) That he is really a Catholic.
(b) That he is on an undercover mission for the governor.
(c) That he is not really a doctor.
(d) That he is her husband.

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

5. Who is said to haunt the forest outside town, carrying a big, heavy book with him?
(a) The Black Man.
(b) The Dark Reverend.
(c) The Evil Man.
(d) The Dark Man.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the title of Chapter 17?

2. Pearl recognizes a man in the procession who did what?

3. What suggests that Pearl will have a child of her own at the end of the novel?

4. Who inherited money and property from Chillingworth?

5. What group of people leads the procession referred to in the title of Chapter 22?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Many people pass Dimmesdale by in this chapter; why are so many people up so late and walking about?

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

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

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

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

7. Why does Chillingworth attempt to stop Hester and Pearl from joining Dimmesdale on the scaffold?

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

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

10. How does Pearl decorate herself at the end of Chapter 18 differently from how she did in the woods when Hester met Chillingworth?

(see the answer keys)

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