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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. In Chapter 19, how does Dimmesdale say Pearl looks?
(a) "Strangely beautiful."
(b) "Strangely familiar."
(c) "Uncannily adorable."
(d) "Uncannily strange."

2. How long did it take before Chillingworth died?
(a) Less than a year.
(b) Five years.
(c) Ten years.
(d) Immediately after Dimmesdale.

3. How does the narrator characterize Dimmesdale's sermon?
(a) The narrator ignores it.
(b) The narrator exhalts it.
(c) The narrator neither praises nor diminshes it.
(d) The narrator disparages it.

4. Why is Dimmesdale at the town center Chapter 12?
(a) To proclaim his guilt in public.
(b) To shame Hester.
(c) To stand side by side with Hester.
(d) To trick Chillingworth.

5. Hester is a self-ordained what?
(a) Sister of Mercy.
(b) Sister of Integrity.
(c) Sister of Chastity.
(d) Sister of Sin.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. According to Hester in Chapter 16, where does she tell Pearl she got the scarlet letter?

3. Why do Hester and Dimmesdale chose the place they do to escape to?

4. What does Dimmesdale tell Chillingworth while he is writing the sermon is Chapter 20?

5. In Chapter 14, the narrator symbolized the truth by what?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

9. Why will Hester and Dimmesdale have to head back to Europe, instead of moving somewhere more rural or remote?

10. Why does Hester say that Dimmesdale should travel somewhere, "whether in some remote village or in vast London, [...] in Germany, in France," etc?

(see the answer keys)

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