A Christmas Carol Challenge Quiz

A Christmas Carol Challenge questions

The answers and an explanation for each question appear as you play, and on the answer-key page of the printout.

1. Scrooge at first refuses to believe in Marley's ghost. What explanation does he offer for it?
   That the fog from the street has entered the room · That a thief has broken in wearing a disguise · That he fell asleep over his bowl of gruel · That his senses are disordered by something he ate
2. Belle releases Scrooge from their engagement. What reason does she give?
   A golden idol has taken her place in him · Her family has forbidden the match outright · She has promised herself to another man · He has grown too poor to support a wife
3. When Scrooge asks whether Tiny Tim will live, how does the Spirit answer him?
   With a vacant seat and an ownerless crutch · With a flat refusal to speak of the future · By showing him the boy's grave at once · By promising the child will outlive Scrooge
4. What does the Spirit tell Scrooge about the two wretched children hidden in its robe?
   They are Scrooge's own childhood and Fan's · They are Ignorance and Want; beware the boy most · They are Famine and Plague, and both must be fed · They are the Cratchits' youngest, not shown before
5. Scrooge asks to be shown anyone who feels emotion at the dead man's death. Who is shown to him?
   The nephew who had pitied him every year · A clerk who weeps in the empty counting-house · A couple relieved that their debt has passed on · A beggar woman he once gave a coin to
6. How does Scrooge greet Bob Cratchit when the clerk arrives late the next morning?
   By forgiving him and saying nothing of it · By docking the eighteen minutes from his pay · By inviting him at once to dine with Fred · By feigning anger, then raising his salary
7. What does the Ghost of Christmas Past show Scrooge of Belle's later life?
   A shop she keeps near Fezziwig's old yard · A lonely lodging and an early widowhood there · A houseful of children and a kind husband · A grave beside Fan's in the churchyard
8. Which of the two children under its robe does the Ghost of Christmas Present tell Scrooge to beware most?
   Both equally, and all of their degree · The girl Want, who clings to the robe · Neither, since both are beyond saving · The boy Ignorance, with Doom on his brow
9. How does Dickens describe Scrooge's secretiveness in the opening stave?
   Self-contained, and solitary as an oyster · Dark and close as the fog out in the street · Shut up tight as a padlocked cash-box · Silent and cold as the grave he dreads

More A Christmas Carol practice: all A Christmas Carol quizzes · characters quiz · themes quiz · plot recall quiz · read A Christmas Carol free

Original questions written for Pagine. Quotations are from the public-domain text.