Fahrenheit 451

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

Multiple Choice

1. Which quote best illustrates the contrast between superficiality and deep relationships? 

A) “How rarely did other people’s faces take of you and throw back to you your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought?” (22)

B) “It drank up the green matter that flowed to the top in a slow boil. Did it drink of the darkness? Did it suck out all the poisons accumulated with the years? “(26)

C) “‘What, the Hound?’ The Captain studied his cards. ‘Come off it. It doesn’t like or dislike. It just ‘functions.’ It’s like a lesson in ballistics. It has a trajectory we decide on for it. It follows through. It targets itself, homes itself, and cuts off. It’s only copper wire, storage batteries, and electricity.’” (39)

D) “And he remembered thinking then that if she died, he was certain he wouldn’t cry. For it would be the dying of an unknown, a street face, a newspaper image, and it was suddenly so very wrong that he had begun to cry, not at death but at the thought of not crying at death, a silly empty man near a silly empty woman, while the hungry snake made her still more empty.” (57)

2. Which mood best describes the scene in which Mildred overdoses and is revived?

A) Anxious and frantic

B) Eerie and lonely

C) Quick and confusing

D) Contentious and angry

3. Which word best describes Mildred? 

A) Sensitive

B) Numb

C) Unintelligent

D) Selfish

4. Montag is involved in a call where they not only burn down the house, but also the woman who refuses to leave her book collection. What does this experience make Montag realize?

A) He realizes that there has to be a reason people would die to protect books. 

B) He realizes that some radicals are beyond reason or redemption.

C) He realizes that he secretly enjoys watching people burn.

D) He realizes that Beatty set him up so that he would be a murderer.

5. What does Montag find most disturbing about when Mildred is revived?

A) The procedure is impersonal and routine.

B) The technology is perfected and almost silent.

C) The medics seem to love the work.

D) Her eyes open and stare up at him.

6. When Clarisse asks Montag, “Are you happy?” he is so shocked that he can’t respond. As he thinks about the question later, he says to himself, “Of course I’m happy.” What does this delayed response say about Montag?

A) He is exhausted from work—he has just burned down a house, for example.

B) He feels awkward talking to women, including Clarisse.

C) He hasn’t thought about his happiness for a long time.

D) He takes longer to process events than he used to.

7. Which character represents rebellion against society’s conventions? 

A) Guy Montag

B) Captain Beatty

C) Mildred

D) Clarisse

8. Montag tells Mildred, “We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?” (49). When does he realize that Mildred has been “really bothered” about her life?

A) When she asks him to get married as soon as possible

B) When she demands that they spend thousands of dollars on turning the fourth wall into another television screen

C) When she asks him not to talk to Clarisse anymore

D) When she swallows the bottle of sleeping pills

9. What does Clarisse’s dandelion make Montag examine more deeply?

A) His motivation for being a firefighter

B) His desire to have conversations with others

C) His relationship with Mildred

D) His relationship with Clarisse

10. Captain Beatty says: “There you have it, Montag. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God.” (72) What does this say about censorship in their society?

A) There are no actual laws about book banning in their society.

B) Their salaries are generous because the society values censorship so much.

C) People demanded that the government implement censorship.

D) People tried to resist censorship but gave up because the media convinced them.

11. What symbol does Granger compare to the coming revolution?

A) The White Clown

B) The Phoenix

C) Dandelions

D) The River

12. What is the first sign foreshadowing Montag’s rebellion?

A) The mechanical hound growls at him.

B) Beatty comes to visit to make sure he is really sick.

C) Mildred doesn’t trust him anymore.

D) He calls Faber and asks for help.

13. Which quotation best fits the theme of the impact of censorship? 

A) “I am one of those innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the ‘guilty,’ but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself.” (78)

B) “Now if you suggest that we print extra books and arrange to have them hidden in firemen’s houses all over the country, so that seeds of suspicion would be sown among these arsonists, bravo, I’d say!” (81)

C) “I’m not thinking. I’m just doing like I’m told, like always. You said get the money and I got it. I didn’t really think of it myself. When do I start working things out on my own?” (88)

D) “I’ve always said, poetry and tears, poetry and suicide and crying and awful feelings, poetry and sickness; all that mush!” (97)

14. What is the best explanation for Montag suddenly remembering that he and Mildred had met each other in Chicago?

A) Now that she is dead or dying, he is less angry and just reminiscing.

B) Meeting someone from Chicago has jogged his memory.

C) Now that he has been outside of society for a while, the numbness is wearing off.

D) Being away from Millie makes him realize that he could have saved her.

15. What tone best fits the ending of the novel?

A) Furious

B) Depressed

C) Grateful

D) Hopeful

Long Answer

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

1. Granger says they need to start their new society by building a mirror factory “and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them” (157). What does he mean by this? How does this connect to Montag’s conversations with Faber and/or Millie?

2. Why does Montag ask Millie, “Does the White Clown love you?” (73). What do her choices say about her real beliefs?

3. Why does Faber feel guilty? What does this say about the way that censorship and tyranny develop?