In Dubious Battle: Quiz Questions
Pixley, California, Cotton Strike camp, 1933.
1) Readers are to assume Mac and Jim belong to which of the following organizations:
A) Labor party
B) Populist Party
C) IWW
D) Communist Party
*Correct answer is D
2) What had Jim been doing prior to joining the Party?
A) Studying in college
B) Doing time in jail for a vagrancy charge
C) Working at a slaughterhouse
D) Caring for his mother
*Correct answer is B
3) What group does Mac describe as "the dirtiest guys in town"?
A) Growers' Association
B) Wobblies
C) Vigilantes
D) Scabs
* Correct answer is C
4) Which labor organization does Dan refer to in his talks with Jim?
A) The Mollies
B) The Wobblies
C) The UIUC
D) The Reds
*Correct answer is B
5) Why doesn't Mac allow Joy's body to be taken by the Coroner and buried right away?
A) He doesn't think the Coroner will do his job.
B) No one has the money to give Joy a proper burial.
C) He wants to display Joy's body to the men to encourage the strike.
D) He wants to send the body back to Joy's family.
*Correct answer is C
6) How does Mac convince Mr. Anderson to let the strikers camp out on his land?
A) He pays Mr. Anderson $1000.
B) He threatens to burn down Mr. Anderson's house.
C) He tells Mr. Anderson that the workers will pick his orchards for free.
D) He promises Mr. Anderson membership in the Party.
*Correct answer is C
7) Why is Lisa's husband rarely seen around camp?
A) He ran away because he was scared of being in the strike.
B) He sneaks away to work as a scab to earn money to feed the baby.
C) He is stationed as a guard at Anderson's barn.
D) He is studying to be a postal worker.
*Correct answer is D
8) What is the term Doc Burton uses to describe the collective behaviors of men?
A) Group-man
B) Communism
C) Collectivism
D) Mob Mentality
*Correct answer is A
9) What is Dakin's most prized possession?
A) His truck
B) His pistol
C) His watch
D) His hat
*Correct answer is A
10) How does Mac get into the good graces of the workers when he first arrives in Torgas
Valley?
A) He buys them all cigarettes.
B) He delivers a baby.
C) He offers them better jobs on another farm.
D) He brings food to the camp.
*Correct answer is B
11) Who initially recruits Jim into the Party?
A) Mac
B) Harry
C) London
D) Joy
*Correct answer is B
12) Why don't London and the other workers leave Torgas Valley after learning of the wage cut?
A) They have spent all of their money just to get to Torgas Valley.
B) They plan to stick around for cotton season.
C) Some of the workers have relatives living in Torgas Valley.
D) They think the Growers' Associate will raise wages again.
*Correct answer is A
13) Who does London visit to figure out if he can combine more workers together to start a strike?
A) Dakin
B) Sam
C) Burke
D) Mr. Anderson
*Correct answer is A
14) How does Jim justify Mac's beating of the kid who set fire to Anderson's barn?
A) He deserved to be punished.
B) He needed to learn right from wrong.
C) He needed to be used as an example.
D) None of the above.
*Correct answer is C
15) What do Burke and the other men accuse London of doing?
A) Setting a trap for Dakin.
B) Being a Communist.
C) Kidnapping Doc Burton.
D) Piling up cans of peaches and sardines in his tent.
*Correct answer is D
16) What country did Mac experience a run-in with soldiers?
A) France
B) Germany
C) Russia
D) England
*Correct answer is A
17) How much time passed between the death of Jim's mother and his recruitment into the Party?
A) One year
B) One week
C) One day
D) One month
*Correct answer is A
18) Why does Doc Burton come across as "a mystery" to Mac?
A) He doesn't have any friends.
B) He never uses his first name.
C) He assists the Party even though he is not a member and does not
believe in the cause.
D) He reads a lot of philosophy.
*Correct answer is C
Eight armed farmers, waiting to ambush Pixley Cotton strikers/unionizers as they cross over to the union hall in 1933.
19) What does Doc Burton mean when he says, "A man in a group isn't himself at all; he's a cell in an organism that isn't like him any more than the cells in your body are like you" (113-114)?
A) People lose their individual identities in groups.
B) Groups take on a life of their own, separate from the individuals who comprise it.
C) Groups are possible of committing actions that individual members could or would not undertake on their own.
D) All of the above.
*Correct answer is D
20) What would make Lisa happy?
A) If Joey successfully becomes a postman
B) If the strike were to end quickly
C) If she could own a cow to make butter, cheese and milk
D) Working side by side with London to lead the strike
*Correct answer is C
