SparkNotes: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Quiz

1. What physical feature does Nurse Ratched try to conceal?

(A) Her long legs

(B) Her blonde hair

(C) Her large breasts

(D) Her birthmark

2. Why did Nurse Ratched hire the three black aides?

(A) For their strength

(B) For their intelligence

(C) For their stubbornness

(D) For their hatred

3. What animals does McMurphy compare the patients to?

(A) Wolves

(B) Chickens

(C) Rabbits

(D) Pigs

4. What animals does Harding compare the patients to?

(A) Wolves

(B) Chickens

(C) Rabbits

(D) Pigs

5. What pattern covers McMurphy’s boxer shorts?

(A) White whales

(B) Hearts

(C) Rabbits

(D) Kisses

6. Which character is a closeted homosexual?

(A) Nurse Ratched

(B) Billy Bibbit

(C) Dale Harding

(D) Chief Bromden

7. Which patient has been on the ward the longest?

(A) Pete Bancini

(B) Colonel Matterson

(C) Chief Bromden

(D) Maxwell Taber

8. How does Rawler, a patient on Disturbed, commit suicide?

(A) He hangs himself

(B) He drowns

(C) He cuts off his testicles

(D) He slits his throat

9. Which of the following symbolizes Bromden’s insanity?

(A) The flock of geese

(B) The loud music

(C) The monopoly board

(D) The fog machine

10. What is the reward for snitching on a fellow patient?

(A) Sleeping late

(B) An extra pack of cigarettes

(C) An Accompanied Pass

(D) Skipping the Group Meeting

11. What is McMurphy’s first complaint to Nurse Ratched?

(A) That the bathrooms are dirty

(B) That the music is played too loudly

(C) That he has no privacy

(D) That he cannot smoke the cigarettes he bought

12. What ailment do Sefelt and Fredrickson suffer from?

(A) Diabetes

(B) Multiple sclerosis

(C) Jaundice

(D) Epilepsy

13. Why does Doctor Spivey drive the patients and accompany them on the fishing trip?

(A) It is hospital policy to have a member of the staff accompany, and Ratched refuses to go

(B) The original driver, Sandy, does not show up

(C) Spivey is a former fisherman who insists he can show McMurphy how it is done

(D) He loses a bet to McMurphy and has no choice

14. Which character, a former seaman, captains the fishing boat?

(A) Colonel Matterson

(B) George Sorensen

(C) Doctor Spivey

(D) Dale Harding

15. What is McMurphy’s excuse for breaking through the glass of the Nurses’ Station?

(A) The glass was so clean he did not see it

(B) Voices in his head told him to

(C) The patients bet him he would not do it

(D) He tripped

16. What important information does the lifeguard give McMurphy?

(A) That Doctor Spivey is addicted to opiates

(B) That he was once in the NFL

(C) That committed patients can leave only at the staff’s discretion

(D) That Bromden is crazy

17. Which of Nurse Ratched’s patients dies in the novel?

(A) Billy Bibbit

(B) Charles Cheswick

(C) Randle McMurphy

(D) All of the above

18. What punishment do McMurphy and Bromden receive for fighting with the aides?

(A) They have to clean the latrines

(B) They have to give up card games in the tub room

(C) They are given electroshock therapy

(D) They are given lobotomies

19. What does McMurphy do to Nurse Ratched after Billy commits suicide?

(A) He punches her in the face

(B) He rips open her shirt and strangles her

(C) He rips off her clothes and rapes her

(D) He calls her vulgar names to her face

20. Why doesn’t Harding want to escape with McMurphy?

(A) He wants to leave via the correct procedures, to prove that he can

(B) He is afraid of the outside and prefers the hospital

(C) He is too drunk and he passes out

(D) He promised his wife that he would stay another year

21. How does Chief Bromden leave the hospital?

(A) He leaves with Candy and Sandy through the window

(B) He checks himself out

(C) He makes Doctor Spivey drive him away

(D) He breaks through a window and runs away

22. How does Charles Cheswick die?

(A) He falls off the boat during the fishing trip and drowns

(B) He drowns in the hospital swimming pool

(C) He receives too many electroshock treatments

(D) He has an epileptic seizure

23. What might the white whales on McMurphy’s boxers symbolize?

(A) An obsessive search for evil

(B) The power of nature

(C) God

(D) All of the above

24. Which event symbolizes that Bromden is regaining his sense of self?

(A) He watches the dog outside his window

(B) He smashes the glass of the Nurse’s Station

(C) He helps McMurphy win a bet by lifting the control panel

(D) He sweeps the floor during a Group Meeting

25. Who eventually kills McMurphy?

(A) Nurse Ratched

(B) McMurphy commits suicide

(C) Doctor Spivey

(D) Bromden