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The Bean Trees

Quiz

Context

Plot Overview

Character List

Analysis of Major Characters

Themes, Motifs & Symbols

Chapter One: The One to Get Away

Chapters Two–Three

Chapter Four: Tug Fork Water

Chapters Five–Six

Chapter Seven: How They Eat in Heaven

Chapters Eight–Nine

Chapters Ten–Eleven

Chapters Twelve–Thirteen

Chapters Fourteen–Fifteen

Chapters Sixteen–Seventeen

Important Quotations Explained

Key Facts

Study Questions & Essay Topics

Quiz

Suggestions for Further Reading

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The Bean Trees

Barbara Kingsolver

Quiz

1. How does Taylor spend the money she earns working at the hospital?

(A) She buys ten hogs

(B) She buys a present for Turtle

(D) She buys a new dress for her mother

2. How does Taylor acquire Turtle?

(A) She finds her at Lou Ann's house

(B) A woman gives Turtle to Taylor

(D) She takes her from Esperanza

3. What bird symbolizes Turtle?

(A) The bird that makes its home in a cactus

(B) The quail

(D) All of the above

4. How do people eat in heaven, according to Estevan?

(A) With their hands

(B) With their eyes

(D) By feeding each other with long spoons

5. Why does Mattie take her friends into the desert one evening in July?

(A) So that they can smell the rain

(B) To show them Tucson's city limits from afar

(D) To prove to them that the desert is a dry, lifeless place

6. What signals Lou Ann's growing sense of independence and confidence?

(A) She gets a job at the Red Hot Mama's salsa factory

(B) She stops comparing herself to a farm animal

(D) All of the above

7. Why was Turtle vulnerable to the prowler in the park?

(A) She is not shy

(B) She is not very smart

(D) Dwayne Ray was distracting her

8. What do Taylor and Estevan toss into the Lake o' the Cherokees when they make their wishes?

(A) Pennies

(B) Dolls

(D) Beer pop-tops

9. What does Mattie have in her garden besides vegetables and flowers?

(A) A statue of Elvis

(B) A statue of Jesus

(D) A fountain

10. Of whom does Mattie remind Taylor?

(A) Newt Hardbine

(B) The Virgin Mary

(D) Alice Greer

11. How does Turtle get her name?

(A) She is slow at everything

(B) She has a firm grip

(D) She is fond of the tortoises at the zoo

12. What happens that causes Turtle to mutter her first sound?

(A) Taylor tickles her

(B) The car has to stop suddenly for a family of quail

(D) Mattie brings her apple juice

13. How does Sandi from Burger Derby afford baby-sitting for her child?

(A) She takes advantage of the mall's free day care

(B) The Burger Derby pays her well

(D) She leaves her child with Mattie

14. What are Alice Greer's “head rights”?

(A) An expensive salon hairdo

(B) 1-800-THE-LORD

(D) Her Cherokee blood

15. What does Taylor identify as a reason she would have to give up Turtle?

(A) Turtle wetting her pants

(B) Turtle burying her doll

(D) Finding no honest way of obtaining adoption papers

16. Who could be seen as Turtle's tragic counterpart?

(A) Ismene

(B) Dwayne Ray

(D) Newt Hardbine

17. What's in the bottle that Granny Logan takes to Lou Ann?

(A) Sand

(B) Tug Fork water

(D) Evian

18. What does Taylor avoid all through her years in Kentucky?

(A) Hospitals

(B) School

(D) Getting pregnant

19. Where does Lou Ann end up working?

(A) At the rodeo

(B) At a salsa factory

(D) At Jesus Is Lord Used Tires

20. Of the following, who to the reader's knowledge still goes by his or her original name?

(A) Estevan

(B) Lou Ann

(D) Taylor

21. What allows Turtle's successful adoption?

(A) The man at the bar gives Taylor his consent

(B) Esperanza takes her and goes back to Guatemala

(D) Estevan and Esperanza pretend to be her biological parents

22. Who is the patron saint of refugees?

(A) St. Shirley

(B) St. Christopher

(D) St. Theresa

23. What does Taylor's mother require of her before she leaves Kentucky?

(A) She has to clean the house

(B) She has to sit up on the Chevron sign

(D) She has to explain why she wants to leave

24. To what does Mattie compare her house?

(A) A bird sanctuary

(B) The kingdom of God

(D) A zoo

25. Who, at the end of the novel, is Turtle's “main ingredient” in her vegetable-soup song?

(A) Esperanza

(B) Taylor

(D) Ismene

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