Nineteen Eighty-Four Challenge Quiz

Nineteen Eighty-Four Challenge questions

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

1. Winston remembers that four years earlier Oceania's enemy and its ally were the other way round. What is the Party's official position on that?
   The records were lost in the war · The change was a needed betrayal · Only the Inner Party may discuss it · There has never been any change
2. The canteen telescreen announces that the chocolate ration has been raised to twenty grammes. Why does the announcement unsettle Winston?
   The ration was cut to that figure last week · The Ministry of Truth issued it instead · The figure is lower than any he can recall · The announcement names no earlier figure
3. What does Winston do with that photograph once he realises what he is holding?
   Drops it into the slot for burning · Keeps it folded in his overalls · Hides it inside his diary at home · Shows it quietly to a colleague
4. As they begin meeting in London, how does Julia's rebellion differ from Winston's?
   Hers aims at the Inner Party · Hers is open and reckless · Hers is private, not political · Hers depends on the Brotherhood
5. Julia drags a rat out from behind the skirting board and is unbothered by it. What does Winston's reaction set up?
   His distrust of Julia · His deepest private terror · His contempt for the proles · His weakening health
6. What do Winston and Julia agree the Party will never be able to take from them, however the end comes?
   The memory of their first meeting · Their right to die together · The room above the junk shop · What they feel inside themselves
7. How does the crowd account for the banners and posters that name the wrong enemy?
   They had always named this enemy · The banners had never been there · The Ministry made a printing error · Goldstein's agents had put them up
8. Strapped to the apparatus, Winston is shown four fingers. What does O'Brien demand of him?
   That he count them aloud · That he name the number first · That he deny seeing any · That he see five of them
9. What does O'Brien mean by calling Winston the last man?
   The last prisoner left alive · The last to resist the dial · The last to hold human values · The last of the old Party
10. What does O'Brien say Room 101 holds for any given prisoner?
    A punishment fitted to the crime · A final chance to recant fully · Whatever that prisoner dreads most · The same terror for everyone
11. The ordinary word for freedom survives in Newspeak. In what sense only?
    A permission granted by the Party · The absence of something, as of pests · The leisure left after one's work · A choice between two orthodoxies
12. The Appendix describes Newspeak and its rules throughout in the past tense. What do many readers take this to imply?
    The account was written in secret · The language was never finished · The regime did not last · Oldspeak had already returned
13. O'Brien rejects the idea that the Party rules for anybody's good. What does he put in its place?
    The ending of all rebellion · The survival of Oceania · Power held purely for itself · The comfort of the Inner Party
14. Why does the Party not simply shoot Winston once he has confessed everything?
    It needs him to name other men · It plans to display him publicly · It never executes Party members · It wants his belief, not his words

More Nineteen Eighty-Four practice: all Nineteen Eighty-Four quizzes · characters quiz · themes quiz · language & structure quiz

Original questions written for Pagine. This book is in copyright, so questions paraphrase rather than quote it.