88 pages • 2 hours read
Fever 1793
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Quiz
Reading Check, Multiple Choice & Short Answer Quizzes
Reading Check questions are designed for in-class review on key plot points or for quick verbal or written assessments. Multiple Choice and Short Answer Quizzes create ideal summative assessments, and collectively function to convey a sense of the work’s tone and themes.
Chapters 1-8
Reading Check
1. What is the main character’s name?
2. What does Matilda’s mother forbid her to do in Chapter 3?
3. Where does Matilda run into Nathaniel in Chapter 5?
4. Who suddenly collapses at the end of Chapter 7?
5. Who is the woman in the cart at the end of Chapter 8??
Multiple Choice
1. Why did Matilda’s mother’s family abandon her mother?
A) They disapproved of her marriage.
B) She converted to another religion.
C) She was the product of an extramarital affair.
D) They found her ambition and behavior improper.
2. What is the disease that threatens Philadelphia in Fever 1793?
A) the plague
B) yellow fever
C) malaria
D) scarlet fever
3. What does Matilda dislike about the Ogilvie family?
A) She thinks they are strange.
B) She thinks they are snobbish.
C) She thinks they are cruel.
D) She thinks they are dishonest.
4. Why does Matilda’s mother want to impress the Ogilvies?
A) She wants them to invest in the coffeeshop.
B) She wants them to use their influence with city officials on her behalf.
C) She hopes to be asked to join a club they are members of.
D) She hopes to marry Matilda to one of their sons.
5. In Chapter 8, what does the mayor order to stop?
A) eating inside bars and restaurants
B) working outside of one’s home
C) travel in and out of the city
D) tolling bells for the dead
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What irritations does Matilda’s morning begin with in Chapter 1?
2. Describe what Matilda likes about Eliza.
3. What does Matilda learn has happened to Polly in Chapter 3?
4. How does the disease spreading in Philadelphia result in more business for the coffeehouse?
5. What do Matilda and her grandfather want to do with the extra money the coffeehouse is earning?
Chapters 9-16
Reading Check
1. Who brings Dr. Kerr to see Matilda’s mother?
2. In Chapter 12, what nickname does Grandfather call Matilda when she takes charge of their situation?
3. Who interferes with Matilda’s attempt to catch a fish in Chapter 13?
4. When Matilda wakes in Chapter 14, what does she discover lying just to her right?
5. In Chapter 15, where do the authorities threaten to send Matilda?
Multiple Choice
1. In Chapter 9, what does Matilda think is “upside down and backside front”? (66)
A) reading a book to her grandfather
B) running the coffeehouse by herself
C) asking a boy to dance
D) bathing her sick mother
2. In Chapter 11, where do Matilda and her grandfather try to go?
A) Chadds Ford
B) New Hope
C) Pembroke
D) Doylestown
3. What do Grandfather’s “soldiering lessons” help Matilda accomplish in Chapter 12?
A) finding water
B) building a fire
C) defending herself
D) stealing food
4. Why does Matilda try to leave Bush Hill as soon as she realizes where she is?
A) She is eager to get back home to check on her mother.
B) She has heard terrible rumors about Bush Hill.
C) She is worried about whether her grandfather survived his illness.
D) She knows that her family cannot pay for hospital services.
5. What volunteer work does Grandfather spend his time doing while Matilda is recovering from yellow fever?
A) burning infected materials and delivering food
B) hauling water and cutting wood
C) fetching medicine and supplies from town
D) comforting patients by reading to them
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why is Mr. Rowley the one to tend to Matilda’s mother in Chapter 9?
2. In Chapters 9 and 10, why does Matilda’s mother keep sending Matilda out of her room?
3. Why are Matilda and her grandfather sent back to Philadelphia when they try to leave town in Chapter 11?
4. How do Matilda’s problems get worse as Chapter 13 continues?
5. How has Philadelphia changed while Matilda has been away?
Chapters 17-24
Reading Check
1. Just before she is about to eat a meal in Chapter 17, what does Matilda realize she has forgotten?
2. Who dies in Chapter 19?
3. What is the name of the orphan that Matilda helps in Chapter 21?
4. Who warns Matilda not to love Nell?
5. In Chapter 24, what causes Eliza to call the pharmacist a “scurrilous dog”?
Multiple Choice
1. When Matilda returns to the coffeehouse, what does she discover has happened?
A) Thieves have broken in, and many things have been destroyed or stolen.
B) There was a fire, but with everyone sick, no one even tried to put it out.
C) City authorities have barred the door and posted a quarantine sign.
D) People she does not recognize are living inside it.
2. What does Matilda do in Chapter 18 that feels like a “special occasion”? (131)
A) buy a new dress
B) clean the coffeehouse
C) make soup
D) take a bath
3. What does Matilda do to the tall thief who attacks her grandfather?
A) shoots a rifle at him
B) hits him with a cast iron pan
C) hits him with a sword
D) threatens him with a kitchen knife
4. Where does Eliza tell Matilda her mother has gone?
A) She is in Bush Hill Hospital.
B) She tried to follow Matilda to Pembroke.
C) She is staying with the Ogilvies.
D) She was arrested for defying a quarantine order.
5. How does Matilda discover that Nathaniel is still alive?
A) Colette Ogilvie tells her.
B) He sends her a painting of a balloon.
C) He tosses daisies down to her from his window.
D) She ends up nursing someone in the Peale house.
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. What does Chapter 18 demonstrate about how Matilda copes with difficult circumstances?
2. What does Matilda argue with the gravediggers about in Chapter 20?
3. What is Matilda in the middle of trying to do when she finally locates Eliza?
4. Why has Dr. Rush asked the Free African Society for help taking care of yellow fever victims?
5. At the end of Chapter 24, how does Matilda demonstrate what she learned from the care she received at Bush Hill?
Chapters 25-Epilogue
Reading Check
1. Why is the city so dark as Matilda makes her way back to the coffeehouse in Chapter 25?
2. What are Matilda and Eliza delighted to see at the beginning of Chapter 26?
3. Where do Matilda and Nathaniel visit together when they go for walks in Chapter 27?
4. Where has Matilda’s mother been all this time?
5. What will Nathaniel do for a living after he finishes his training?
Multiple Choice
1. What does Joseph send to the coffeehouse in Chapter 26?
A) firewood
B) medicine
C) food
D) water
2. What is Philadelphia compared to in Chapter 27?
A) a soup that is thin but nourishing
B) a balloon that has lost some of its air
C) an apple that has finally ripened in the sun
D) a wilted flower that is recovering in a bowl of water
3. Who is the “frail” but “beautiful” woman that Nathaniel tells Matilda about in Chapter 28? (233)
A) Mrs. Peale
B) Matilda’s mother
C) Colette Ogilvie
D) Mother Smith
4. By the end of Chapter 29, how are Matilda’s and her mother’s roles reversed?
A) Matilda is now the one who has to take care of the business and her mother.
B) Matilda is now the one who thinks it might be wiser to marry into a wealthy family.
C) Matilda is now the one who sometimes speaks too sharply and hides her feelings.
D) Matilda is now the one who wants to save money in case of a future emergency.
5. How does the Epilogue echo the novel’s first chapter?
A) The Cooks’ new maid is late for work.
B) Matilda works on stitching a quilt before breakfast.
C) Matilda gets another mosquito bite at the end of the Epilogue.
D) It begins with Matilda waking up and getting ready for a day of work at the coffeehouse.
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. At the end of Chapter 25, as Matilda looks around at the dying garden, what do her thoughts demonstrate about how her circumstances have changed her?
2. Why does Matilda go to the market in Chapter 26?
3. What decision about her future does Matilda come to during the thanksgiving feast?
4. Despite her success in running the coffeehouse in Chapter 28, why does Matilda still feel “hollow”? (230)
5. What does Matilda finally understand about her mother’s feelings in Chapter 29?
Quizzes – Answer Key
Chapters 1-8
Reading Check
1. Matilda Cook (Chapter 1)
2. attend Polly’s funeral (Chapter 3)
3. at the market (Chapter 5)
4. Colette Ogilvie (Chapter 7)
5. Matilda’s mother (Chapter 8)
Multiple Choice
Short-Answer Response
1. Polly’s mother wakes her up to work in their family’s coffeehouse, when Polly would rather sleep. She has a mosquito bite, and her cat leaves a dead mouse on her mother’s bed. (Chapter 1)
2. Eliza has a love for life despite the suffering she has experienced, in contrast to Matilda’s own mother. She tells wonderful stories that Matilda loves listening to. (Chapter 2)
3. Polly developed symptoms of a fever and died within an hour. (Chapter 3)
4. Rumors say that the disease is spreading from the area of the docks; the coffeehouse is far enough away from this area that people feel safer at the coffeehouse than at the restaurants closer to the water. (Chapter 5)
5. Matilda and her grandfather want to expand the business. Matilda thinks that they should serve a more extensive menu, and she and her grandfather want to add on a store. (Chapter 6)
Chapters 9-16
Reading Check
1. Eliza (Chapter 10)
2. Captain (Chapter 12)
3. King George/the parrot (Chapter 13)
4. a dead body (Chapter 14)
5. to an orphanage (Chapter 15)
Multiple Choice
Short-Answer Response
1. All of the physicians are already busy taking care of people who have yellow fever. (Chapter 9)
2. She does not want Matilda to get sick. (Chapters 9 and 10)
3. The men guarding Pembroke think that Grandfather has yellow fever. (Chapter 11)
4. At first she is only hungry and worried about her mother and grandfather, but later in the chapter, she begins to develop symptoms of yellow fever herself. (Chapter 13)
5. The streets are nearly deserted, and basic services like the post office are not open. There is almost no food, and so many have died that they are being buried without coffins or funerals. (Chapter 16)
Chapters 17-24
Reading Check
1. to give thanks to God (Chapter 17)
2. Matilda’s grandfather (Chapter 19)
3. Nell (Chapter 21)
4. Mother Smith (Chapter 23)
5. He raises the price of medicine. (Chapter 24)
Multiple Choice
Short-Answer Response
1. Instead of just complaining and feeling sorry for herself in difficult circumstances, Matilda takes pride in working hard and making practical decisions. She is grateful for small victories, like finding the potatoes. (Chapter 18)
2. She wants her grandfather to be buried with a prayer, but the gravediggers say there are no ministers available. (Chapter 20)
3. Matilda is trying to find Reverend Allen’s group, the Free African Society, which takes in orphans. (Chapter 21)
4. He believes that Black people cannot contract yellow fever. (Chapter 22)
5. She decides to take Joseph’s sick children and Nell to the coffeehouse, where they will be able to have more space and fresh air. (Chapter 24)
Chapters 25-Epilogue
Reading Check
1. No one is left to light the lamps. (Chapter 25)
2. frost (Chapter 26)
3. her grandfather’s burial place (Chapter 27)
4. She got sick when she was looking for Matilda, and she has been recovering. (Chapter 29)
5. paint (Epilogue)
Multiple Choice
Short-Answer Response
1. Matilda remembers how carefree she was when she planted the beans, just months before. She realizes how fast she has had to grow up because of the epidemic. (Chapter 25)
2. She is trying to find out where her mother is, and she thinks that someone there might know something. (Chapter 26)
3. She will keep the coffeehouse and run it with Eliza as her partner, and she will continue to take care of Nell. (Chapter 27)
4. Matilda has suffered through a lot and lost people important to her; in addition, she still does not know where her mother is. (Chapter 28)
5. Despite the sharp way her mother used to speak to her, Matilda’s mother loves her deeply. (Chapter 29)
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By Laurie Halse Anderson
