Nathaniel Hawthorne · ready
The Scarlet Letter: chapter checks
13 checks, 78 questions, answer key with the line of the text behind each answer, and a rubric for each written answer.
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Checks
- The Custom-House
- Chapters 1–2
- Chapters 3–4
- Chapters 5–6
- Chapters 7–8
- Chapters 9–10
- Chapters 11–12
- Chapters 13–14
- Chapters 15–16
- Chapters 17–18
- Chapters 19–20
- Chapters 21–22
- Chapters 23–24
Two questions from The Custom-House
1. According to the narrator, what was the "chief tragic event" in the life of the old Inspector?
- A The loss of his savings in a failed trading voyage
- B A goose so tough it took an axe and handsaw to divide
- C Losing his place when the Whigs came into power
- D A shipwreck he barely survived as a young sailor
Answer key
B. The narrator jokes that a goose so tough it needed an axe and handsaw was the old man's great tragedy; the deaths of his three wives and most of his children cost him only "one brief sigh," which is the point of the satire.
2. Placing the faded cloth on his chest, the narrator feels "as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron." What does this sensation suggest?
- A The old cloth had been treated with a dye that stung the skin
- B He suspects the letter is a fake made by some later clerk
- C The old symbol still holds a painful, almost bodily power
- D He is excited by how much money the relic might bring him
Answer key
C. The letter seems to burn like a brand, so its meaning reaches his feelings before his mind can explain it; he shudders and drops it, which fits none of the practical readings.
What you get
- Student checks (PDF, US Letter). Name, date and score lines; each check starts on a new page.
- Answer key (PDF, kept apart). The right letter, one line on why, and the line of the text that proves it. A 2-1-0 rubric for every written answer.
- Canvas and Schoology. A QTI 1.2 ZIP: one quiz per check, multiple choice graded automatically.
- Google Forms. A CSV and a short script that turns it into one self-grading quiz per check, in your own Drive.
- Any other quiz tool. The same CSV: question, options A to D, right answer, points, rubric.
Edition and public-domain status
Text used: Project Gutenberg eBook #25344 (gutenberg.org/ebooks/25344). Nathaniel Hawthorne died in 1864 and the work was first published in 1850: public domain in the United States, and under the stricter rule we apply for sales abroad (author dead before 1925). Questions refer to chapters, not pages.