Assessment
Short Answer
Tuck Everlasting
By Natalie Babbitt
Short Answer Questions
Prologue, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2
1. How long ago and in what part of the year did Mae Tuck ride to the wood, Winnie decide to
think about running away, and a stranger come to the Fosters’ door?
2. What was it that connected all three events?
3. How had the road into Treegap been formed?
4. What path did the road take when it reached the wood?
5. Who owned the wood?
6. What would have happened if the cows had made their road through the wood instead of
around it?
7. Why was Tuck smiling in his sleep?
8. Why did Mae think no one in Treegap would remember her?
9. What object did Mae Tuck take with her when she rode out to meet her sons in the wood?
10. Why didn’t Mae need to look at herself in the mirror?
Chapter 3 and Chapter 4
1. What animal did Winnie Foster tell her troubles to?
2. Describe the situation that made Willie so unhappy she planned to run away.
3. When did Winnie think she might actually go through with her plans?
4. What memory came to Winnie when she looked at the tall thin stranger in the yellow suit?
5. Why was the man in the yellow suit walking along the road from Treegap?
6. What two questions did the stranger not answer for Winnie’s grandmother?
7. What did Winnie’s grandmother say to her granddaughter about the music coming from the
wood?
8. What question did the man in the yellow suit ask Winnie’s grandmother about the music?
9. What did Winnie say about the music?
10. What was the stranger doing as he disappeared down the road?
Chapter 5 and Chapter 6
1. What did Winnie have to admit about her plans to run away?
2. What happened to Winnie the moment she saw Jesse Tuck?
3. How did Jesse Tuck answer when Winnie asked his age?
4. What did Jesse do when Winnie asked about drinking from the spring?
5. What were Mae Tuck’s words when she saw Winnie at the spring and Jessie with his foot on the
pile of pebbles that covered it?
6. Describe the method the Tucks used to kidnap Winnie.
7. What did Mae say to the man in the yellow suit when he spotted them speeding along with
Winnie?
8. What caused Winnie to start crying?
9. What was it that helped calm Winnie and all three of the Tucks?
10. What did Jesse tell Winnie she had to do?
Chapter 7 and Chapter 8
1. How many years had passed since the Tucks drank from the spring in the wood?
2. Why did Miles’ wife leave him?
3. Why did the Tucks have to leave their farm?
4. What did the Tucks find when they returned to the spring in the wood?
5. How was the cat different from the Tucks and their horse?
6. What was Angus Tuck’s idea as to why the spring existed?
7. What did Miles think of the possibility they there were lots of other people like them?
8. Why did Mae insist that Winnie come with them to see Tuck?
9. What ideas occurred to Winnie as she traveled with the Tucks?
10. What important events did neither Winnie nor the Tucks notice?
Copyright © 20078Margaret Whisnant
29
Assessment
Short Answer
Tuck Everlasting
By Natalie Babbitt
Chapter 9, Chapter 10, and Chapter 11
1. How did Mae Tuck prevent Winnie from getting a serious sunburn?
2. Where was the Tucks’ little house located?
3. What did Tuck say about Winnie’s presence?
4. How was the Tucks’ little house different from what Winnie was used to?
5. Explain how Mae and Angus made money.
6. Miles and Jesse didn’t live with their parents. Where were they most of the time?
7. What happened every ten years the first week of August?
8. What was unusual about the way the Tucks ate their supper?
9. Why did Winnie begin to feel uneasy and ask to go home?
10. After he heard about the man who had seen Winnie with Mae and the boys, how did Tuck feel
about the situation?
Chapter 12, Chapter 13, and Chapter 14
1. According to Tuck, how was life like the water in the pond?
2. How did Tuck use the stuck rowboat to explain his family’s situation?
3. How did Tuck characterize the life he and his family were living?
4. What did Tuck say he would do if he had the chance?
5. What would happen, in Tuck’s opinion, if people knew about the spring in Treegap?
6. Who stole the Tuck’s old horse?
7. How did both Pa and Mae Tuck feel about Winnie being with them for the night?
8. What did Jesse ask Winnie to think about?
9. How was Jesse’s attitude toward his family’s situation different?
10. How did Jesse’s idea affect Winnie?
Chapter 15, Chapter 16, and Chapter 17
1. What deal did the man in the yellow suit offer the Fosters?
2. How far was the journey from Treegap to the Tucks’ cabin?
3. What question from the constable prompted the man in the yellow suit to ride ahead of him?
4. Though they had kidnapped her, how did Winnie feel about the Tucks?
5. If they were still alive, how old would Miles’ children have been?
6. Why didn’t Miles find his family and tell them about the spring?
7. From Miles’ way of thinking, what would happen if nothing ever had to die?
8. What decision did Winnie make after listening to Miles?
9. What plans did Miles have for his life?
10. What happened to the fish that Miles caught?
Chapters 18 and 19
1. How did Winnie feel at the thought of seeing Jesse again?
2. Who answered the door when the man in the yellow suit came knocking?
3. Explain how the man in the yellow suit knew about the Tucks.
4. Explain how the man knew the music he heard coming from the wood was Mae’s music box.
5. How did the man come into possession of the wood where the spring was located?.
6. What did the man intend to do with the water from the spring?
7. What deal did the man offer Tuck?
8. What was the man doing and saying when Mae killed him with the shotgun?
9. Mae did not shoot the man in the yellow suit. Explain how he died.
10. Besides the Tucks and Winnie, who else saw what happened to the man in the yellow suit?
Chapter 20, chapter 21, and Chapter 22
1. What did Winnie tell the constable when he said the Tucks had kidnapped her?
2. What did Winnie notice about Tuck when he gazed at the man lying on the ground?
3. If the man in the yellow suit died, Mae would go to the gallows. Why was this a problem for the
Tucks?
Copyright © 20078Margaret Whisnant
30
Assessment
Short Answer
Tuck Everlasting
By Natalie Babbitt
4. What conclusion did Winnie reach about Mae’s attack on the man in the yellow suit?
5. What was happening in the August night sky as Winnie sat gazing out her window?
6. When they went outside with a bowl of water, what were Winnie and her grandmother planning
to do?
7. What was Miles’ plan for rescuing Mae?
8. When he handed her the bottle of water from the spring, what did Jesse say Winnie should do?
9. What did Winnie intend to do to help the Tucks?
10. When were Jesse and Winnie to meet again?
Chapter 23 and Chapter 24
1. What was the weather like during Winnie’s longest day?
2. When she went outside after supper, what prediction did Winnie make?
3. What concern did Winnie have when she thought about the constable bringing her home for the
second time?
4. What technique did Miles use to pry the nails from the jailhouse window frame?
5. Describe the encounter with the constable during Mae’s rescue.
6. Why did Miles wait for a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder to pull the window from its
frame?
7. What event had just occurred when the first drop of rain fell?
8. What single word did Jesse whisper to Winnie?
9. Which one of the Tucks lifted Winnie so she could climb into the jail cell?
10. What sound did Winnie think she heard when she looked out into the empty yard?
Chapter 25 and Epilogue
1. What happened to the gallows during the stormy night that Winnie spent in the jail cell?
2. Describe the constable’s reaction when he found Winnie instead of Mae locked in the cell.
3. How did Winnie explain her behavior to her parents?
4. How did Winnie’s shameful behavior change the way other children treated her?
5. What did Winnie do to keep the toad safe forever?
6. Why did the men at the Treegap gas station laugh at Mae and Tuck when they rode by?
7. Why had the wood been bulldozed three years before the Tucks came back to Treegap?
8. How did Tuck know that Winnie had died?
9. How do you know that Tuck approved of Winnie’s decision not to drink from the spring?
10. Why did Tuck stop the horse and climb down from the wagon as he and Mae rolled out of
Treegap?
Copyright © 20078Margaret Whisnant
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