Catch-22 Trivia
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49 free Catch-22 trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Catch-22 trivia quiz covers Joseph Heller's 1961 satire of war and bureaucracy, the debut novel that gave the English language a phrase for an impossible bind. The easy questions handle the basics: who wrote it, the name of its bombardier antihero, the island the squadron sits on, the colonel who keeps raising the mission count, and what the catch actually says. From there it moves through the characters, from Milo Minderbinder's M&M Enterprises and Major Major Major Major's resemblance to Henry Fonda to Orr's rowing trip to Sweden and the terrible secret Snowden spills over the floor of a B-25. The harder half is for devoted readers: why the book was nearly called Catch-18 (and Catch-11, and Catch-14), the 1953 morning when Heller thought of the first line, the 60 missions he really flew, the $1,500 advance, the New Yorker's savage review, the eggs bought in Sicily for a cent and sold for five, the Egyptian cotton coated in chocolate, the anachronistic loyalty oaths and IBM machines, and the school board that banned it. If you enjoyed our Slaughterhouse-Five or classic novels quizzes, this is the deep dive on Heller's masterpiece. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for Catch-22, Joseph Heller, the main characters and the film and miniseries adaptations before publishing.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which war is Catch-22 set?
World War II
World War II, the war in which Heller himself flew 60 combat missions as a bombardier, experience he drew on for the novel.
Q 02In Catch-22, who is declared dead after falsely listing himself aboard a plane that crashes?
Doc Daneeka
Doc Daneeka was never really aboard, yet he can't convince the Army, or even his wife, that he isn't dead.
Q 03In Catch-22, on which Mediterranean island is Yossarian's squadron based for most of the story?
Pianosa
Pianosa is a real island, but Heller himself flew his combat missions from Corsica.
Q 04In Catch-22, why won't Yossarian wear his uniform to receive his medal?
Snowden's blood had soaked it
Snowden's blood had soaked it, so Yossarian stands in formation stark naked to receive the medal.
Q 05In Catch-22, what does Colonel Cathcart keep raising?
The mission count
The mission count: every time the men near it, Cathcart raises it again, hoping to please his superiors and become a general.
Q 06Under Catch-22, an airman asking to be grounded as crazy proves what?
That he is sane and must keep flying
Asking proves that he is sane and must keep flying, since a concern for one's safety in the face of real danger is 'the process of a rational mind'.
Q 07Under what medical pretext is Yossarian hiding in hospital when Catch-22 opens?
A chronic liver condition
A chronic liver condition that stays just short of jaundice, so the puzzled doctors can neither treat it nor discharge him.
Q 08How does Yossarian's tentmate Orr finally escape the war?
He rows to Sweden after ditching his plane
He rows to Sweden after ditching his plane, and Yossarian realises that all of Orr's crashes were practice runs, so he decides to follow him.
Q 09In Catch-22, what 'secret' does Yossarian learn from the gunner Snowden's death?
Man was matter
Man was matter: Yossarian bandages Snowden's visible leg wound, then opens his flak suit to find the fatal wound as Snowden's insides spill out.
Q 10In Catch-22, during which bombing mission is the gunner Snowden mortally wounded?
Avignon
Avignon was a raid Heller flew himself, and he later wrote that Yossarian's scenes tending Snowden came from that mission.
Q 11In Catch-22, what does Milo keep telling the men to justify M&M Enterprises' black-market deals?
Everyone has a share
Everyone has a share, Milo insists, even while he strips supplies from the men's own planes to sell.
Q 12In Catch-22's opening chapter, who drives Yossarian and Dunbar out of the hospital?
A relentlessly friendly Texan
A relentlessly friendly Texan: he is so good-natured and likable that soon nobody in the ward can stand him.
Q 13In Catch-22, Milo corners the market in which crop, then serves it to the men coated in chocolate?
Egyptian cotton
Q 21In Catch-22, what kills Hungry Joe?
Huple's cat
Huple's cat smothers him in his sleep, a grim end for a man whose screaming nightmares stopped whenever he was put back on combat duty.
Q 22What was Joseph Heller's day job when he began writing Catch-22 in 1953?
Advertising copywriter
Advertising copywriter, and those office years later shaped his second novel, Something Happened, about a man who works in a company.
Q 23In which Brooklyn neighbourhood did Joseph Heller grow up?
Coney Island
Coney Island is where he grew up, and as a boy he sent a story to the Daily News, which rejected it.
Egyptian cotton: Milo buys up the entire crop, then can't sell any of it, the one deal that goes wrong for his syndicate.
Q 14Milo's maxim 'What's good for the syndicate is good for the country' parodies a 1953 remark by the president of which company?
General Motors
General Motors' Charles Wilson actually said 'what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa', but the shorter misquote stuck.
Q 15In Catch-22, what does Milo contract with the Germans to do?
Bomb his own squadron's base
Bomb his own squadron's base, and Milo escapes punishment by revealing the enormous profit the deal made.
Q 16Which real-life film star does Major Major Major Major unfortunately resemble?
Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda is the likeness, and to make things worse his father had named him Major Major Major purely as a joke.
Q 17In Catch-22, what promoted Major Major to the rank of major?
An IBM machine with a sense of humour
An IBM machine with a sense of humour promoted him, and the sudden rank left him resented and friendless in his own squadron.
Q 18Under what title was Catch-22's opening chapter first published in 1955?
Catch-18
Catch-18 was dropped just before the novel came out, because Leon Uris had recently published a novel called Mila 18.
Q 19In Catch-22, whose name does Yossarian sign on the letters he censors?
Washington Irving
Washington Irving, sometimes reversed to Irving Washington: the signature brings a C.I.D. man to the hospital to find out who is behind it.
Q 20In Catch-22, what kept driving Chief White Halfoat's family off their land?
Oil discoveries
Oil discoveries: oil companies kept following the family and kicking them off, and Halfoat later predicts he will die of pneumonia, which he does.
Q 24According to Heller, the line that started Catch-22 was about falling in love at first sight with whom?
The chaplain
The chaplain was in that opening line, and within a week Heller had written the whole first chapter and sent it to his agent.
Q 25Heller said the antiwar feeling in Catch-22 came less from the war it portrays than from what?
The Korean War and the 1950s
The Korean War and the 1950s were his real targets, so Heller deliberately planted 1950s anachronisms in a wartime story.
Q 26Which Czech novel did Heller reportedly say he would never have written Catch-22 without first reading?
The Good Soldier Švejk
The Good Soldier Švejk was planned to run to six volumes, but Hašek had finished only three when he died, leaving it unfinished.
Q 27Catch-22's Chapter 11, 'Captain Black', parodies which episode of American politics?
Red Scare-era McCarthyism
Red Scare-era McCarthyism: Captain Black makes every man sign loyalty oaths just to eat, but spitefully won't let Major Major sign one.
Q 28Which magazine panned Catch-22, saying it gave 'the impression of having been shouted onto paper'?
The New Yorker
The New Yorker panned it, while novelist Nelson Algren, writing in The Nation, called it the best American novel to come out of anywhere in years.
Q 29In Catch-22, who keeps trying to kill Yossarian after he tells her about a death?
Nately's whore
Nately's whore blames Yossarian for Nately's death and keeps ambushing him, right up to the novel's last page.
Q 30In Catch-22, which magazine does Colonel Cathcart hope will feature his group?
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post: Cathcart wants prayers said before every raid, hoping a flattering article there will help him make general.