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The below is an English teacher's test for Rocket Boys/October Sky we have permission to share.
It is designed to confuse those who watched the movie instead of reading the book.
We'll let you devise the answer sheet!
October Sky by Homer Hickam, Jr.
Book Test
February 16, 2000
I. MATCHING
Match each character with the appropriate identifying description.
1. _______ Mr. Van Dyke
2. _______ Elsie
3. _______ Quentin
4. _______ Miss Riley
5. _______ Dorothy
6. _______ Buck
7. _______ Mr. Fuller
8. _______ William Laird
9. _______ Homer Hickam Sr.
10. _______ Pooky
11. _______ Mr. Dubonnet
12. _______ Mr. Hartsfield
13. _______ Geneva Eggers
14. _______ Dr. Von Braun
15. _______ Ike
16. _______ Valentine
17. _______ Jim
18. _______ The Great Six
19. _______ Tex
20. _______ Sherman
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a. she liked to flirt with the writer
b. leader of the miners' union
c. Orville at the National Science Fair
d. the calculus teacher
e. the writer's father
f. smartest boy in the group
g. the writer's mother
h. died from complications from his childhood polio
i. died at age 32
j. smartest person in the writer's class
k. was kicked off the bus with the writer
l. the general superintendent of the mine
m. temporary superintendent of the mine
n. The Captain
o. teachers who supported the rocket boys
p. the writer's brother
q. the scientist who inspired the writer
r. machine shop worker punished by the writer's father
s. resented the writer's father for his own father's death
t. baby saved by the writer's father
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II. MULTIPLE CHOICE
Please circle the best answer
- The writer grew up in:
- Welch
- War
- Turkey Knob
- Coalwood
- The writer's grandfather lost his
- Eye
- Legs
- Arms
- None of the Above
- The shaft used for lifting, sorting, and dumping coal was called
- The Virch
- The Crank
- The Tuggle
- The Tipple
- The writer's high school footbal team
- Was undefeated
- Played too many teams in Virginia
- Did not get to play for the state championship
- All of the Above
- The name of the company the father worked for was
- The Olga Coal Company
- The Coalwood Mine company
- The Hartsfield Coal Company
- None of the Above
- The Russians sent Sputnik into space in
- December 1941
- August 1948
- May 1953
- October 1957
- The writer played the following instrument in the school band
- Drums
- Trombone
- Trumpet
- None of the Above
- The fuel for the writer's first rocket was from
- Cherry Bombs
- M-80s
- Firecrackers
- None of the Above
- The writer's first rocket ripped out his mother's
- Privacy Fence
- Picket Fence
- Rose-Garden
- None of the Above
- What was the mother's one rule?
- Don't blow yourself up
- Don't quit building rockets
- Don't stay in Coalwood
- All of the Above
- The writer's father had a spot on his lung the size of
- An apple
- A quarter
- A fist
- None of the Above
- Quentin told the writer he needed a fuel composed of
- Potassium nitrate, sulfur, and zinc
- Potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sugar
- Potassium nitrate, sugar, and charcoal
- Potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal
- They named their rockets
- Aulks
- Klizes
- Vanguards
- Auks
- The writer formed a club to launch rockets called
- The CWRC
- The BMAC
- The ABMA
- The BCMA
- In their designs, the rocket boys
- Changed one thing at a time
- Changed two things at a time
- Changed several things at once
- All of the above
- In order to form a nozzle, Mr. Bykovski
- Welded a nut to the bottom of the rocket
- Soldered a nut to the bottom of the rocket
- Soldered a washer to the bottom of the rocket
- Welded a washer to the bottom of the rocket
- A rocket landed dangerously close to the mining company, and the writer's father
- Was mad at the boy for being a thief of company property
- Was mad at the boy for almost killing innocent people
- Was delighted that his son was showing interest in science
- Was delighted that his son confessed to his crime
- Cape Coalwood was founded
- After the boys almost killed Mr. Turner
- After the minister told the fathers to help their sons
- After the owner of the mine wanted Coalwood to get a NASA contract
- All of the above
- Items were secured for Cape Coalwood
- By trading goods for supplies and services
- By forging the father's signature on requisitions
- By going to Junior at the Big Store
- None of the above
- Jake Mosby
- Had a telescope
- Got the boys some press
- Was an engineer
- All of the above
- Who had worked with explosives before and told the writer the powder needed to be bone dry
- Mr. Dubonnet
- Mr. Bykovski
- Mr. Ferro
- Mr. Caton
- What did Jake tell the boys they needed to figure out distance and altitude
- Calculus
- A refractor
- Algebra
- Trigonometry
- Miss Riley intoduced the boys to rapid oxidation by combining
- Potassium chlorate and sugar
- Potassium chlorate and sulfur
- Potassium chlorate and zinc
- Potassium chlorate and salt
- The melting of elements from question #23 became a fuel called
- Rock Candy
- Zincoshine
- Saltpeter
- None of the above
- The writer went in to the mine because
- His Dad wanted to show him what a real engineer does
- His Dad was hurt and the family needed him to work and make money
- His mother wanted him to see what it was like
- The brother needed to stay in school and the family needed one of the boys in the mine
- The rockets needed a better casing made of
- WD40
- Aluminum 501
- SAR 1020 bar stock
- SEA 1020 bar stock
- What book did the writer notice in the Bykovski's house
- Of Mice and Men
- The Fountainhead
- All Quiet on the Western Front
- None of the above
- The title of the book Miss Riley gave the writer was
- Properties of Guided Rocket Design
- Principles of Guided Rocket Design
- Properties of Guided Missile Design
- Principles of Guided Missile Design
- The writer gets to school on the snow day by
- Snowshoes
- A sled
- Skis
- None of the above
- How many were allowed to take calculus?
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- None of the above
- Who surprised everyone by signing up for the calculus class?
- Dorothy
- Jim
- Valentine
- All of the above
- How did the boys prove they did not set the fire on top of Davy Mountain?
- The fins were too sophisticated for their design
- The writer proved, through trigonometry, that the distance was impossible to cover
- Quentin and the writer marched off the distance using a premeasured string
- All of the above
- The last fuel that they began using contained
- Zinc
- Alchohol
- Sulfur
- All of the above
- The writer's father helped the writer with his calculus by explaining the meaning of
- The foil method
- The quadratic equation
- The sign for delta
- Faverman's axiom
- The machinist could have made a mistake by
- changing too many things at once
- reducing the fins
- adding weight
- making the rockets too tall
- What was the name of the kid's hangout in the basement of the Owl's Nest?
- The Owl's Roost
- Porky's
- The Bullpen
- The Dugout
- Where did the writer and a girl have a romantic evening?
- Cape Coalwood
- Jim's car
- Geneva Eggers house
- Buck's car
- Who died in a mining accident that made the writer quit building rockets?
- Mr. Dubonnet
- his father
- Mr. Mosby
- Mr. Bykovski
- Who convinced him to start building rockets again?
- Mrs. Dubonnet
- His mother
- Miss Riley
- Mrs. Bykovski
- O'Dell had a plan to make money by
- Digging up train tracks and selling the scrap
- Digging up train tracks and selling the pipe underneath
- Digging up train tracks and selling the rails
- None of the above
- What was the company doing to the houses?
- Digging them up and selling the scrap
- Selling them
- Demolishing them
- None of the above
- How many houses could the writer's mother buy with the money she had saved?
- What Democratic Presidential candidate did the writer meet?
- Humphrey
- Nixon
- Stevenson
- Kennedy
- What color suit did the writer first buy?
- Blue
- Black
- Yellow
- None of the above
- What did the father have to do in order to help his son?
- Give in to the strike
- Sign on the contract so the company word was "his" word.
- Forget moving to the beach
- All of the above
- The writer won this at the National Science Fair
- A scholarship to college
- A chance to shake Von Braun's hand
- $10,000 cash
- None of the above
- The last rocket fired by the group went about
- Almost 50 miles up
- Almost 6 miles up
- Almost 6 miles beyond the line considered space (36 miles)
- None of the above
- The last rocket was launched by the writer's
- Mother
- Father
- Teacher - Miss Riley
- Girlfriend - Melba June Munroe
- Miss Riley died from
- Heart Disease
- Parkinson's Disease
- Hodgkin's Disease
- None of the above
- One item the writer had carried into space was
- A piece of the nose cone that the father had saved
- A piece of the nozzle that the father had saved
- A piece of coal from Coalwood
- The book given to him by Miss Riley
III. TRUE/FALSE
1. _______ The writer went to West Virginia Tech.
2. _______ His mother made her fortune by investing in stocks.
3. _______ Quentin used a refractor to calculate how far the rockets went.
4. _______ Billy was brought into the group because he was fast and he had money.
5. _______ Tag made Buck repair the blockhouse.
6. _______ The writer's brother played quarterback on the football team.
7. _______ The writer married Valentine years later.
8. _______ Jake drove a Corvair.
9. _______ The writer's father never moved to Myrtle Beach.
10. ______ Big Creek High School was in War, West Virginia.
11. ______ Dorothy kissed the writer 17 times in the book.
12. ______ Pooky killed the writer's pet cat.
13. ______ Mr. Fuller placed a "No Trespassing" sign at Cape Canaveral.
14. ______ Junior helped the writer get the supplies he needed from the Big Store.
15. ______ Geneva Eggers had eight brothers.
16. ______ The writer did, at some time in the book, work in the mine.
17. ______ Quentin went to M.I.T.
18. ______ O'Dell made money by selling genseng.
19. ______ The boys were almost run over by a train while digging up the track.
20. ______ The writer kept Ike's tag as good luck.
21. ______ The mother liked to paint pictures, especially on the wall in the kitchen.
22. ______ The writer's father had to wear a glass eye.
23. ______ Basil wrote the articles that made the boys popular.
24. ______ The mine in Coalwood is still working today.
25. ______ Quentin liked to used the word "Proficient" to declare his approval.
26. ______ The book was orginally entitled Rocket Boys.
27. ______ The writer's father thought Eisenhower was the last "great" President.
28. ______ Early in his life, the writer's father had Parkinson's Disease.
29. ______ Football was brought back to the high school after a one year supsension.
30. ______ The writer wore a tie with a blue jay on it for good luck at the Science Fair.
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Educators - Rocket Boys Guide - 7th Grade Test