By the Waters of Babylon
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40 free By the Waters of Babylon trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Stephen Vincent Benét's short story follows John, a priest's son, on a journey his tribe has forbidden since the beginning of time. It is a classroom staple because it works twice: once as an adventure, and again as a puzzle, when the reader starts to recognise what John is really looking at. This quiz covers the whole story in multiple-choice form: the laws of John's people, the signs that send him on his way, the river crossing, the night in the dead city and the talk with his father that ends it. A few questions step outside the story to the author, the magazine that first printed it and the events that shaped it. It suits students revising for a class or pre-AP quiz, teachers who want ready questions with explanations, and anyone who has just finished the story and wants to check what they caught.
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Q 01In By the Waters of Babylon, the Place of the Gods is which ruined city, named only at the very end?
New York
New York is the name John finally sets down as a single word, newyork, after a story that only ever calls it the Place of the Gods. His people know the name but never say it.
Q 02In By the Waters of Babylon, what does John grasp about the gods on seeing the dead god's face?
They were men
They were men, John decides, because the dead face looks wise and sad rather than divine. From that moment he loses all fear, and he carries the secret home to his father.
Q 03In By the Waters of Babylon, the broken statue marked ASHING once honoured which American?
George Washington
George Washington matches the figure John describes, a carved man with long hair tied back. Unsure which god ASHING might be, John prays to him anyway.
Q 04In By the Waters of Babylon, the crumbling god-roads John follows are the remains of what?
Highways
Highways are what a modern reader sees in the god-roads, which John's people no longer use because they are breaking into blocks of stone. He leaves them for the forest partway through his journey.
Q 05In By the Waters of Babylon, John walks eight days in which forbidden direction to reach the river?
East
East is barred by the tribe's oldest law, along with crossing the great river and looking on the Place of the Gods. John breaks all three taboos on a single journey.
Q 06In By the Waters of Babylon, what do priests gather from the Dead Places that no one else may touch?
Metal
Metal first marks John out as a child: he holds a piece from a dead house unharmed, and his father takes it as proof that he will be a priest.
Q 07In By the Waters of Babylon, the bronze door without a handle that baffles John belongs to what?
An elevator
An elevator is what a modern reader recognises, though John wonders if a magic word might open it. He reaches it only after a long, dizzying climb up the building's stairs.
Q 08In By the Waters of Babylon, what lingers in the ground for years after the Great Burning?
Poison
Poison from the gods' weapons stays in the soil for years in John's vision, long after the mist that spread it has cleared. Only a few of the gods escape the city alive.
Q 09In By the Waters of Babylon, how does John's father say the truth about the gods should be told?
Little by little
Little by little is the father's rule, because he warns that too much truth at once can kill. John himself wonders whether the people of the old days took in knowledge too fast.
Q 10Published in 1937, By the Waters of Babylon is often said to foreshadow which later weapon?
The atomic bomb
The atomic bomb was still eight years away, yet the destruction John sees in his vision reads like later accounts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Q 11In By the Waters of Babylon, John belongs to which tribe, whose priests wear white robes?
Hill People
Hill People is the name John gives his tribe, and he is proud that they have kept the old writings. He looks down on their rivals as ignorant by comparison.
Q 12In By the Waters of Babylon, what does John build to cross the forbidden river?
A raft
A raft carries him most of the way before it strikes and overturns near the far shore, leaving him to swim. He lands with hardly anything but his weapons.
Q 13In By the Waters of Babylon, what does John sing as he pushes off across the great river?
His death song
His death song boasts of the dangers he has already passed, yet John admits he feels small and alone on the water. He sings it because he is sure the Place of the Gods will kill him.
Q 21In By the Waters of Babylon, what does John ask his father to do to him for breaking the law?
Kill him
Kill him, John tells his father, because he has gone where the law forbids. His father refuses, answering that laws change from one generation to the next.
Q 22In By the Waters of Babylon, what does John vow his people will do with the Place of the Gods?
Rebuild it
Rebuild it is John's promise for the day he becomes chief priest. Whether that is hope or the first step toward another Great Burning is left for the reader to judge.
Q 23In By the Waters of Babylon, what must a priest undergo after carrying anything out of a Dead Place?
Purification
Q 14In By the Waters of Babylon, which bird is the first sign John sees as he waits and fasts?
An eagle
An eagle flying toward the forbidden lands is John's first sign, but he distrusts it, since bad spirits can send signs too. He waits until sunset for a second one.
Q 15In By the Waters of Babylon, which predator does John kill with one shot as it attacks a white fawn?
A panther
A panther falls to a single arrow, and John takes so clean a kill as a sign that he is meant to go on. The fawn had been travelling with three deer, his second sign.
Q 16In By the Waters of Babylon, which animals hunt John in a pack through the Place of the Gods?
Wild dogs
Wild dogs chase him to the foot of a tower, and he escapes only by slipping through a doorway and shutting them out. That lucky entrance leads up to the apartment where he spends the night.
Q 17In By the Waters of Babylon, the ruin carved with the letters UBTREAS was what kind of building?
A federal treasury
A federal treasury is right: the missing letters spell Subtreasury, a branch office that once held federal funds for its region. John can read the letters but cannot understand them.
Q 18In By the Waters of Babylon, John eats fruit of the gods that has been preserved in what?
Jars
Jars keep the fruit sweet long after the Great Burning, though John was punished as a boy for tasting such food. His father had warned him that the food of the gods could be deadly.
Q 19In By the Waters of Babylon, what fills the apartment and convinces John a wise god lived there?
Books
Books lie everywhere in the rooms, many in languages John cannot read, and to a priest who prizes old writings they mark the owner as wise. Later the priests begin gathering them from the Dead Places.
Q 20In By the Waters of Babylon, where in the apartment does John find the dead god?
Seated by a window
Seated by a window is how the body has stayed since the city fell, as if still looking out over it. John believes the dead god chose to stay and watch rather than flee.
Purification is required of both the priest and whatever he brings back, one of the tribe's oldest rules. John is purified again when he returns from his journey.
Q 24In By the Waters of Babylon, what lies in a corner of the dead house where young John waits at the door?
Bones
Bones in the corner frighten him, but he hides his fear, as the son of a priest is expected to. After more visits to such houses, the sight no longer troubles him.
Q 25In By the Waters of Babylon, John scorns a rival tribe for eating what from the trees?
Grubs
Grubs are John's proof that his rivals are ignorant, while his own tribe has kept the old writings. He also boasts that the women of his tribe spin wool on the wheel.
Q 26In By the Waters of Babylon, what does John take from a dead house on his eight-day journey?
A knife
A knife, barely rusted, is his one find on the way to the river. It is among the few things he still has when he drags himself onto the far shore.
Q 27In By the Waters of Babylon, John tells the apartment's spirits that he has not come as what?
A robber
A robber is what John fears the spirits will take him for, so he stands in the entrance and announces that he comes in peace. Only then does he walk through the rooms.
Q 28In By the Waters of Babylon, which tale about the Place of the Gods proves true when John arrives?
It is an island
It is an island, just as the priests said, but the enchanted fog and burning ground of the same stories are nowhere to be seen. What he finds instead is a silent ruin of towers.
Q 29In By the Waters of Babylon, what does John feel just before his vision of the living city?
His spirit leaves his body
His spirit leaves his body, drawn out by the spirits of the place, and he sees himself lying asleep below. John insists it was strong magic and no ordinary dream.
Q 30In By the Waters of Babylon, the painting that blurs up close and sharpens from afar shows what?
Flowers
Flowers dissolve into dabs of colour when John steps close, which suggests an Impressionist canvas to modern readers. It is one of many treasures left untouched in the rooms.