Flowers for Algernon Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. When Charlie notices Gimpy cheating Mr. Donner, what conflict does Charlie face?
Whether to leave New York before the experiment is exposed
Whether Alice should replace Mr. Donner as bakery manager
Whether to give Gimpy access to the intelligence procedure
Whether loyalty to a coworker should outweigh honesty toward his employer
2. Why is Algernon especially significant to Charlie's experience?
He belonged to Charlie during childhood and helps restore Charlie's memories
He is trained to guide Charlie through the college building
He underwent a similar intelligence-enhancing procedure before Charlie
He is an untreated comparison subject whose abilities never change
3. Charlie initially considers the bakery workers his friends even when they make him the target of jokes. What later change most disrupts that belief?
He learns that they secretly arranged his operation
He discovers that they are competing for his classroom place
He becomes able to recognize the cruelty behind much of their behavior
He realizes that they have been reporting his progress to Nemur
4. Why does Charlie challenge the researchers' presentation of him at the Chicago convention?
He believes Alice deserves sole credit for the experiment
He resents being treated as a specimen and believes their conclusions are premature
He objects because Algernon has been excluded from the research display
He wants the procedure offered immediately to the general public
5. What role does Fay Lillman play in Charlie's life?
She is a laboratory assistant assigned to monitor his behavior
She is his free-spirited artist neighbor and becomes romantically involved with him
She is his estranged sister living under a different surname
She is a journalist investigating the experiment
6. Early in the story, Charlie thinks an inkblot test requires him to find a hidden picture. What does this reaction chiefly reveal?
He has previously memorized the test's correct responses
He deliberately gives false answers to avoid the operation
He tries earnestly to satisfy expectations he does not yet understand
He suspects the researchers are testing his eyesight
7. What does Charlie's Algernon-Gordon Effect predict?
The operation will work permanently if the subject continues learning
Only laboratory animals will experience a reversal of the operation
Artificially increased intelligence will deteriorate in relation to the size of the increase
Emotional maturity will decline even while intelligence remains stable
8. At a restaurant, customers laugh when a young dishwasher drops dishes. Why is this scene pivotal for Charlie?
He recognizes the young man's humiliation and condemns the crowd's cruelty
It proves to him that intelligence always produces compassion
It reminds him that he wants to return permanently to bakery work
He concludes that the young man should become another research subject
9. As Charlie's intelligence rapidly increases, why do his relationships often become more difficult rather than easier?
His intellectual growth outpaces his emotional adjustment and changes how he sees others
The researchers forbid him from forming close personal relationships
The operation erases his ability to recognize familiar people
He decides that intelligent people should avoid all emotional attachments
10. How does the title Flowers for Algernon connect to the novel's ending?
Charlie plans to open a flower shop named after the experiment
Charlie asks that someone place flowers on Algernon's grave
Alice gives Charlie flowers before he returns to the bakery
Nemur names the completed research project after a flower
11. When Charlie revisits his family home after his intelligence has increased, what does he encounter?
His parents have reconciled and immediately recognize his achievements
His father is waiting there and asks Charlie to join his barbershop
Norma denies knowing him, while Rose calmly explains why he was sent away
Norma expresses regret, while Rose responds with confusion and flashes of old fear
12. Near the end, why does Charlie decide to go to the Warren State Home?
He plans to continue the experiment there without Nemur's supervision
He has accepted a job teaching residents how to write progress reports
He wants to locate records proving that his childhood memories were false
He anticipates further decline and does not want those who know him to respond with pity
13. How is Charlie Gordon's story primarily presented in the novel?
Through progress reports written by Charlie
Through letters exchanged by the scientists
Through Alice Kinnian's diary entries
Through a third-person narrator following Algernon
14. Who is Charlie's teacher before his operation and later becomes emotionally close to him?
Fay Lillman
Alice Kinnian
Rose Gordon
Norma Gordon
15. Who wrote Flowers for Algernon?
Kurt Vonnegut
John Steinbeck
Ray Bradbury
Daniel Keyes
16. Which development in Algernon most clearly warns Charlie that the experiment may be failing?
Algernon becomes erratic and loses abilities he had previously mastered
Algernon refuses food unless Charlie personally feeds him
Algernon learns to escape every enclosure in the laboratory
Algernon begins performing tasks that the researchers cannot measure