To Kill a Mockingbird Study Guide: Part 1

Chapter 1: “That was the summer Dill came to us.”

1. In what state does the novel take place?
2. What does the children’s father, Atticus, do for a living?
3. From whose point of view will the story be told?
4. Who is Calpurnia and what is she like?
5. What game does Dill invent?
6. What did Arthur (Boo) Radley do (at age 33) that landed him temporarily in the county jail?
7. According to Jem’s description, what does Boo look like”
8. What act of “courage” on Jem’s part ends the chapter?

Chapter 2: “We’ll do like we always do at home, [Jem] said, “but you’ll see—school’s
different.”

1. On her first day of school, what does Scout get in trouble for? List three things:

2. How does Miss Caroline Fisher feel at the end of her first day? How do you know?”

3. What are the Cunningham’s like?

Chapter 3: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of
view . . .”
1. How does Scout solve her problem with Walter Cunningham?
2. How does Jem solve Scout’s problem with Walter Cunningham?
3. Why can’t Walter Cunningham pass the first grade?
4. What scared and shocked Miss Caroline? (Do you know another name for this creature?)

Chapter 4: “Grown folks don’t have hidin’ places.”

1. What is the first gift that appears in the hollow tree? What other gifts do the children find?
2. What new facts does Dill offer about his father?
3. How has the Boo Radley game changed?
4. When Scout rolls into the Radley front yard in the tire, what does she hear?

Chapter 5: “His name’s Arthur and he’s alive.”

1. What does Scout admire about Miss Maudie?
2. What do you learn about Uncle Jack?
3. What new plan do the boys devise to get Boo to come out? Why doesn’t it work?
4. What does Dill say that causes Scout to accuse him of lying?
5. What direct order does Atticus give the children?

Chapter 6: “It was then, I suppose, that Jem and I first began to part company.”
1. How do the children plan to spend Dill’s last night in Maycomb?
2. What goes wrong with the children’s escape plan?
3. At whom does Mr. Nathan think he has fired his gun?
 4. How do the children claim to have spent the evening?
5. What makes Jem decide to return to the Radley yard that night?

Chapter 7: “As Atticus had once advised me to do, I tried to climb into Jem’s skin and walk
around in it.”
1. What does Jem tell Scout bout “that night” at Boo Radley’s?
2. What new gifts do they find in the knothole? (There are 5.)
3. What ends the knothole gifts?

Chapter 8: “. . . the coldest weather since 1885.”

1. Who dies this winter?
2. What “aberration of nature” frightens Scout?
3. What method does Jem devise to make a snowman?
4. When Maudie’s House begins to burn, what other possibility is the Finch family worried about?
5. Why doesn’t Atticus help carry out Maudie’s furniture?
6. Whom will Scout someday want to thank for keeping her warm on the night of the fire?

Chapter 9: “. . . the beginning of a rather thin time for Jem and me.”
1. Who is Tom Robinson?
2. What gift does Uncle Jack give the children?
3. What new habit has Scout picked up that bothers Uncle Jack?
4. What does cousin Francis tell Scout about Dill’s homelife?
5. Why does Scout fight her cousin after Christmas dinner at Finch’s Landing?
6. What is “Maycomb’s usual disease”?

Chapter 10: “Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill
a mockingbird.”
1. In Scout’s eye’s, what is Atticus’s chief fault?
2. What reason does Uncle Jack give for Atticus’s unwillingness to teach the kids to shoot?
3. What crisis shows the children a surprising skill their father possesses?
4. Who is Heck Tate?
5. What is Atticus’s old nickname?

Chapter 11: “I wanted you to see what courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a
man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and
you see it through no matter what.”
1. What makes the children hate and fear Mrs. Dubose?
2. What two comments specifically infuriate Jem to the point that he can’t control his temper?
3. What does Jem do to get revenge?
4. What is his punishment?
5. What did Mrs. Dubose vow to do before she died?