Mockingbird

Multiple Choice and Long Answer questions create ideal opportunities for whole-book review, unit exam, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. Before Caitlin meets Michael, which sentence best describes Caitlin?

A) She is open, friendly, and eager to make friends.

B) She is sad and depressed and refuses to talk even to her father.

C) She is careful to avoid other people, particularly strangers.

D) She is happily lost in a world of her beloved comic books and her video games.

2. How does Caitlin react when she is confronted by any potentially upsetting encounter?

A) She blurs her vision so that everything looks soft and inviting.

B) She bites her fingernails and pretends to be deaf.

C) She eats to avoid having to talk.

D) She uses her phone to call her father even if he is at work.

3. Why does Caitlin decline to work in a group for a project?

A) Caitlin tells her teacher that she thinks the students in the class are mean to her.

B) Caitlin tells her teacher that she is too unhappy over her brother’s death to concentrate.

C) Two girls tell her at recess that no one wants to work with her because she is “weird.”

D) Caitlin tells Mrs. Brook that she can do a better project on her own.

4. What lesson does Caitlin learn from the movie Bambi?

A) She learns that death is absolute.

B) She learns that hunting and guns are bad.

C) She learns that love helps heal a broken heart.

D) She learns that you have to believe in yourself to survive.

5. What best describes how Caitlin acts when she first meets Michael Schneider on the playground?

A) She is unintentionally mean to him, making fun of his too-big baseball cap.

B) She finds all his questions about her brother’s death annoying and tells him so.

C) She likes that he minds his manners and is nice to her.

D) She thinks the jokes he tells are funny and tells him he is her best friend.

6. What does Caitlin learn watching the television news story about the shooting at the middle school?

A) She learns a new word—“closure”—and how important that is for the community.

B) She learns a new phrase—"not guilty by reason of insanity”—and wonders how the shooter can be both guilty and innocent.

C) She learns a new word—“schizophrenic”—and wonders what that means about the shooter.

D) She learns that the shooter actually goes to their church, and she asks her father about praying for him.

7. According to Devon, what is the importance of the mockingbird in the movie he and Caitlin love to watch?

A) The mockingbird symbolizes trust between members of the same family.

B) The mockingbird, with its elaborate nest, symbolizes commitment to a project.

C) The mockingbird symbolizes youthful energy and a joy for living.

D) The mockingbird symbolizes innocent people who would never hurt anyone.

8. Why does Caitlin feel happy for the first time on the playground?

A) She sees a cardinal on the monkey bars and loves its bright red color.

B) Michael shares all his friends with her, and she feels like Snow White surrounded by the happy dwarfs.

C) She remembers playing kickball with her brother the first day school.

D) Michael gives her his favorite baseball cap to show her how much he likes being her friend.

9. What does Caitlin ask her father for her birthday?

A) She asks for a paint set.

B) She asks to go to mall with her brother.

C) She asks for a puppy or a kitten.

D) She asks for a treehouse in the big oak in the backyard.

10. Why does Caitlin move Rachel’s desk to the corner of the classroom?

A) She wants Rachel to be closer to her.

B) She tells Mrs. Johnson that she thinks Rachel copies off her work.

C) Rachel tells Caitlin she loves to watch the clouds in the sky, and the corner is the best place to look outside.

D) Caitlin is trying to help Rachel feel less self-conscious about the bruises on her face as a result of her bike accident.

11. What bothers Caitlin about drawing the art teacher’s face at the fundraiser?

A) Caitlin sees both happiness and sadness in his eyes and cannot draw that.

B) Caitlin realizes as she is trying to draw the eyes that the art teacher is partially blind.

C) The art teacher’s eyes are gray in color, and Caitlin wants to change them to an easier color, like blue or brown.

D) Caitlin cannot get the eyes to match exactly, and she gets put off by how mismatched they seem.

12. When Caitlin finally gets the idea of closure, what does she decide to do?

A) Watch To Kill a Mockingbird with her father

B) Share her lunch with Michael

C) Visit the memorial garden where Devon’s cremains are interred

D) Finish Devon’s Eagle Scout project with her father

13. Why does the Physical Education teacher apologize to Caitlin?

A) He made an insensitive remark about students with developmental disabilities.

B) He put Caitlin on the same kickball team as Josh, the cousin of the school shooter.

C) He yelled at Caitlin for sucking on the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

D) He talked about the school shooting, not realizing who Caitlin was.

14. Why is it ironic that during the fire drill Caitlin tries to save Michael, who is screaming on the monkey bars, from Josh?

A) It is not Michael—just a kid who looks like Michael and wears the same hat.

B) Josh is actually trying to help Michael get off the monkey bars.

C) It is not Josh at all.

D) One of the teachers runs up, thinking it is Caitlin who is trying to hurt Michael.

15. What gift does the art teacher give Caitlin after the service in the school?

A)  A framed black-and-white photo of her brother

B)  An illustrated book about the artist Vincent Van Gogh

C) A new sketchpad and colorful crayons

D) A paint-by-number set that will be a painting of an eagle in flight

Long-Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. The main plot surrounds Caitlin’s struggle to understand other people and to think about their needs first. Using Josh as an example, show how Caitlin comes to understand empathy.

2. The project to complete Devon’s Eagle Scout project is intended to give Caitlin and her father a sense of closure. Summarize Caitlin’s thinking behind this and the resolution offered in the closing chapter.

3. “Life is special” (204). What does Caitlin’s father mean by this and how does this advice impact Caitlin’s character arc? How does she embrace her father’s idea?