Nineteen Eighty-Four Themes Quiz

Nineteen Eighty-Four Themes 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 conclusion about where hope lies does Winston set down in his diary?
   With the records he is able to alter · With doubters in the Inner Party · With the proles, the great majority · With the Brotherhood's hidden cells
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. When Winston explains to Julia in the room that the Party continually rewrites the past, how does she respond?
   She asks him to prove it · She refuses to believe him · She warns him to stop talking · She cannot see why it matters
6. What does Winston conclude the proles have kept that Party members have lost?
   A language free of Newspeak · A memory of the Revolution · Private loyalties and feelings · The habit of open speech
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 say the Party seeks power for?
   For its own sake, nothing more · For the good of the weak · For the wealth of its members · For the defeat of its rivals
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. In the final scene at the Chestnut Tree Cafe, what has become of Winston's mind?
    He has forgotten Julia entirely · He has come to love Big Brother · He waits calmly for his release · He is planning one last protest
12. 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
13. O'Brien produces the photograph of the three condemned leaders, then destroys it. What does he then claim?
    That the men were guilty anyway · That it no longer exists at all · That memory alone can keep it · That Winston forged it himself
14. 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

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