My Favorite Quiz

I had a "school-teaching memory" that popped into my head this morning ...

Near the end of my career (I retired in the spring of 2011)  I was teaching English III at Western Reserve Academy. High school juniors. American literature + Hamlet (a play about that great American hero).

In the winter we read Melville's wonderful not-so-short story "Benito Cereno" (1855--four years after Moby-Dick), a story based on an actual event--a slave rebellion aboard a Spanish slave ship off the western coast of South America. It deals with a rather dense captain of another ship--an American one--Captain Delano (an ancestor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt)--an officer who does not recognize what's happened aboard the slave ship when he goes there to "visit." Not until it's almost too late.

Anyway, "Benito" is not an easy text to read--but well worth the trouble (I'm not sure all my former students would agree). Melville seduces readers, gets them rooting for the wrong team. It dazzled me when I realized what he'd done ...

Anyway, when we finished the text, I gave them a reading quiz; many groans ensued when I announced it. But the groans soon turned into other sounds when they actually started completing the quiz. They all got 100% on it--and I'm sure you will, too, if you want to give it a whirl.

I put the answers at the end--DON'T CHEAT! I'M WATCHING! You do NOT need to read the story to take the quiz! But if you do want to read it one of these days, I've put a link here.

Link to text of "Benito."

	___  11

 

Ridiculously Difficult Final “Benito Cereno” Quiz

Instructions: Match the letters below with the statements that best go with them.

a. Atufal

b. Babo

c. Bachelor’s Delight

d. Benito Cereno

e. Captain Delano

f. Daniel-o Dyer-eno

g. Don Alexandro

h. Herman Melville

i. Iceland

j. Mayflower

k. San Dominick

l. Santa Maria

m. seals

n. slaves

o. Starship Enterprise

p. William Shakespeare

___  1. Captain of the San Dominick, the Spanish ship,   (He's also called Don Benito.)

___  2. Captain of the American ship, Bachelor’s Delight.  (A later relative was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.)

___  3. Leader of the slave rebellion (pronounced BABB-oh)

___  4. Second in command of the slave rebellion (pronounced uh-TOO-ful)

___  5. Owner of the slaves; his skeleton’s name was Don Alexandro.

___  6. Name of the American ship (note: a bachelor is an unmarried man).

___  7. Name of the Spanish ship (note: San is Spanish for Saint).

___  8. Main human cargo on the Spanish ship.

___  9. Furry animals that the Americans were hunting before they met the Spanish slave ship, San Dominick.  (Used for seal furs and seal oil.)

___ 10. Author of “Benito Cereno” (Originally spelled his last name Melvill).

___ 11. The island near Chile where the action of the story occurs.  (Means St. Mary in English.)

___ 12. A long-ago Spanish relative of Benito Cereno whose descendant is now my English III teacher at WRA.

ANSWERS (don't cheat!): d, e, b, a, g, c, k, n, m, h, l, f