To Kill a Mockingbird
Name: ______________________
Author’s Purpose / Inference Skills
Read the following passages to determine what Harper Lee’s purpose was in writing them. What
inferences (logical conclusions) can the reader make? Complete sentence answers, please.
1. “Dill said Helen said, ‘evenin’, Mr. Finch, won’t you have a seat?’ But she didn’t say any more. Neither did
Atticus…‘she just fell down in the dirt…like a giant with a big foot just came along and stepped on her’”
(322). Infer what makes Helen react this way. What might Atticus’s face look like?
2. “A shadow on the corner of the house caught his eye, and that was all he saw of his visitor. Mrs. Taylor
came home from church to find her husband in his chair, lost in the writings of Bob Taylor, with a shotgun
across his lap” (332). Infer who breaks into Judge Taylor’s house and why.
3. “Firstly, people had removed from their store windows and automobiles the stickers
that said NRA—WE DO OUR PART. I asked Atticus why, and he said it was because the
National Recovery Act was dead. I asked who killed it: he said nine old men” (336).
Infer what the NRA relates to (not guns…think what decade this is) and who the “nine
old men” are.
4. “They told me later that Judge Taylor went out behind the auditorium and stood there slapping his knees
so hard Mrs. Taylor brought him a glass of water and one of his pills” (347). Infer what is most likely
wrong with Judge Taylor.
5. “My toes touched trousers, a belt buckle, buttons, something I could not identify, a collar, and a face. A
prickly stubble on the face told me it was not Jem’s” (352). Infer what Scout feels with her feet that she
cannot identify.
6. “[Aunt Alexandra] brought me something to put on, and had I thought about it then, I would have never
let her forget it: in her distraction, Aunty brought me my overalls. ‘Put these on darling,’ she said, handing
me the garments she most despised” (354). Infer Harper Lee’s purpose in including this detail. What
does it do for Alexandra’s characterization?
Vocabulary-in-Context (with some idioms, too!)
Read the following passages from the novel and figure out, based on clues present in the passage (and
from the chapter as a whole), what the word most nearly means. Don’t use a dictionary!
7. “I heard Mrs. Grace Merriweather giving a report in the livingroom on the squalid lives of the Mrunas”
(305).
a. Filthy
b. Splendid
c. Short
d. Clean
8. “Ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere…” (307).
a. Confidence
b. Anxiety
c. Excitement
d. Mystery
9. “‘I’m sure you do,’ Miss Maudie said shortly. She said no more. When Miss Maudie was angry her brevity
was icy” (312).
a. Temperature
b. Baking
c. Conciseness
d. Stare
10. “‘Evening, Jean Louise, he would say, as if he had said it every afternoon of my life, ‘right pretty spell
we’re having, isn’t it?’” (325).
a. What nice
b. What a
c. All of this
d. What lovely
weather we’re
delightful
seems like a
overalls you’re
having
magic trick
dream
wearing today
11. “Calpurnia said it was hard on Helen, because she had to walk nearly a mile out of her way to avoid the
Ewells, who, according to Helen, ‘chunked at her’ the first time she tried to use the public road” (333).
a. Shouted
b. Chomped their
c. Did the Truffle
d. Put up a
obscenities
teeth at her
Shuffle at her
roadblock
12. “Atticus said as tactfully as he could that he just didn’t think he could stand a pageant tonight, he was all
in” (339).
a. Sharply
b. Rudely
c. Politely
d. Loudly
13. “Atticus said as tactfully as he could that he just didn’t think he could stand a pageant tonight, he was all
in” (339).
a. Exhausted
b. Gambling
c. Bored
d. Disinterested
14. “We had slowed to a cautious gait, and were feeling our way forward so as not to bump into the tree”
(342).
a. Doorway
b. Run
c. Walk
d. Turnout
15. “We squandered our first nickels on the House of Horrors, which scared us not at all…”(344).
a. Wasted
b. Searched
c. Terrified
d. Saved
16. “After consulting a tree to ascertain from its lichen [moss] which way was south…” (346).
a. Determine
b. Insult
c. Plant
d. Teach
Random Question: “Jem was becoming almost as good as Atticus at making you feel right when things went
wrong” (247). What point of view is this?
a. First person
b. Second person
c. Third person
d. Third person
limited
omniscient