The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. Rather than maintaining his own permanent household, how does Ichabod generally obtain lodging in the community?
He sleeps in the schoolhouse throughout the year
He lives permanently with the Van Tassels
He stays in rooms attached to the village church
He boards in turn with local farming families whose children he teaches
2. After hearing supernatural stories at the Van Tassel gathering, Ichabod rides home through dark, familiar countryside. Why does it now seem threatening to him?
The stories intensify his already active and superstitious imagination
He has learned that soldiers are searching the roads for him
Brom has publicly warned him about a planned robbery
A storm has destroyed the road markers leading to his school
3. During the final chase, what object does the pursuing rider hurl at Ichabod?
A saddle
A severed-looking head later associated with a pumpkin
A lantern taken from the church
A cannonball recovered from the battlefield
4. What is Ichabod Crane’s principal occupation in Sleepy Hollow?
Village minister
Schoolmaster
Traveling lawyer
Farm overseer
5. Brom looks knowing and laughs especially hard when the pumpkin is mentioned. What inference does this invite?
Brom had previously seen the genuine ghost near the bridge
Brom believes Ichabod secretly returned to Connecticut
Brom may have impersonated the Horseman to frighten Ichabod away
Brom arranged for Katrina to hide Ichabod’s belongings
6. The tale is presented as having been found among whose papers?
Geoffrey Crayon’s
Jonathan Oldstyle’s
Baltus Van Tassel’s
Diedrich Knickerbocker’s
7. What time limit is commonly placed on the Headless Horseman’s nightly journeys?
He must disappear when he crosses running water
He must return to the churchyard before daybreak
He must reach the battlefield before the moon sets
He can ride only until midnight
8. Which interpretation best reflects the ending of Irving’s tale?
The narrator conclusively proves that the Headless Horseman is real
The story preserves uncertainty between a supernatural encounter and a human prank
The villagers formally expose Brom’s disguise and punish him
Ichabod admits that he invented the encounter to escape his debts
9. Which discovery most directly supports the possibility that the Horseman’s thrown “head” was part of a prank?
A shattered pumpkin found near Ichabod’s hat
A Hessian uniform hidden in the churchyard
A broken sword beside the bridge
A carved wooden skull inside the schoolhouse
10. Ichabod needs a mount for the Van Tassel gathering. Which description identifies Gunpowder?
Brom’s fast black stallion, secretly taken from his stable
Baltus Van Tassel’s young carriage horse, offered to Ichabod
An old, awkward horse borrowed from Hans Van Ripper
A military horse abandoned near the churchyard
11. Where is Sleepy Hollow located in the story?
Near Tarry Town on the eastern bank of the Hudson River
In a coastal Massachusetts village near Salem
In a Connecticut farming community near Hartford
In the Catskill Mountains west of the Hudson River
12. According to local legend, who was the Headless Horseman before his death?
A Dutch sailor killed on the Hudson River
A British spy executed by the villagers
A Hessian soldier decapitated by a cannonball during the Revolutionary War
A colonial magistrate murdered near the schoolhouse
13. A later traveler reports that Ichabod is alive elsewhere and has entered law and politics. How does this report affect the mystery?
It confirms that the Horseman carried Ichabod across the Hudson
It proves that Brom and Ichabod planned the chase together
It supports a non-supernatural explanation for his disappearance without proving exactly what happened
It shows that Katrina sent Ichabod away on a secret assignment
14. Who is Ichabod’s chief rival for Katrina Van Tassel’s attention?
Baltus Van Tassel
Hans Van Ripper
Diedrich Knickerbocker
Abraham “Brom Bones” Van Brunt
15. Ichabod imagines Katrina alongside fields, livestock, and abundant food. What does this reveal about his courtship?
He is attracted both to Katrina and to the prosperity she may inherit
He mainly wants her help in expanding his school
He hopes her family will appoint him village minister
He believes she knows how to defeat the Headless Horseman
16. Who wrote “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”?
James Fenimore Cooper
Edgar Allan Poe
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Washington Irving