Tears of a Tiger
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40 free Tears of a Tiger trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Tears of a Tiger opens with a celebration that ends in a fatal crash, and then it stays with the driver. Over the following months Andy Jackson tries to carry on in class, at practice and at home while the guilt he hides from almost everyone grows heavier. The novel has been on school reading lists since the 1990s because it deals with drunk driving, depression and suicide without lecturing. This quiz follows the book the way a class would. It covers the night of the accident and what comes after, the friends and adults around Andy, the scenes readers remember, and the unusual way the story is put together from documents and voices. A last group of questions looks at how the book came to be written and published, and at the two novels that continue the story. It is for anyone preparing for a reading check or an end-of-unit test, and for readers who want to see how much of the story stayed with them. Every answer comes with a short explanation. The novel turns on a character's suicide; if that subject is close to home, talk to someone you trust, or call or text 988 in the United States.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Shakespeare play, studied in English class, upsets Andy Jackson so much he runs out?
Macbeth
Macbeth reaches its bleak speech about life being brief and meaningless, and Andy cannot sit through it. Death is the one subject he has been pretending not to think about.
Q 02Which character is Andy Jackson's girlfriend in Tears of a Tiger, who finally breaks up with him?
Keisha
Keisha stands by Andy for months and is the one person who sees how deep his depression runs. She ends it when his need for her becomes more than she can carry alone.
Q 03Which sport do Andy Jackson and Rob Washington play for their high school in Tears of a Tiger?
Basketball
Basketball frames the whole story: the fatal drive follows a big win, and Andy later takes over his dead friend's place on the team. The court becomes both his release and his guilt.
Q 04Which friend riding in the car on the night of the crash in Tears of a Tiger had not been drinking?
B.J. Carson
B.J. Carson stayed sober while the other three drank, and he still could not stop what happened. He later leans on his faith, praying for the friends he lost.
Q 05Dr. Carrothers, whom Andy Jackson visits after the fatal crash, is what kind of professional?
A psychologist
A psychologist is who Andy is sent to so he can talk through his guilt. He fools Dr. Carrothers by acting as though he is coping, which is one reason the adults around him miss the danger.
Q 06Which character visits Andy Jackson's grave and has the last word in Tears of a Tiger?
Monty
Monty, Andy's six-year-old brother, tells him at the graveside that he left before he could teach him anything important. He says he will miss him, and the book ends there.
Q 07What is the name of Andy Jackson's high school, which also gives its name to the trilogy of novels?
Hazelwood
Hazelwood High is where all three novels unfold, each following a different teenager from the same circle of friends. Its teams are the Tigers, which is where the title's animal comes from.
Q 08What stops Andy Jackson and his friends from pulling Rob Washington out of the wrecked car?
The car explodes
The car explodes while Rob is still pinned inside, so the three who got out cannot reach him. All three survive, and all three have to live with what they saw.
Q 09Which novelist wrote Tears of a Tiger, her first book, which 24 publishers turned down?
Sharon M. Draper
Sharon M. Draper was teaching high school English when she wrote it for teenagers like the ones in her own classes. The twenty-fifth publisher she tried said yes.
Q 10What had Andy Jackson and his friends been drinking to celebrate before the fatal crash?
Beer
Beer flows after a big win for the team, and Andy gets behind the wheel anyway. The author insists the four are ordinary kids, which is the point: it could be anyone's car.
Q 11What is taken away from Andy Jackson after the crash that kills Rob Washington?
His driver's license
His driver's license is taken away once he is out of hospital. No punishment from outside comes close to the one Andy hands himself.
Q 12Who arranges for Andy Jackson to see Dr. Carrothers so he can talk through his guilt?
His parents
His parents send him, hoping an outsider can get him talking. Andy instead convinces the doctor that he is coping, and he is not.
Q 13What was Rob Washington's role on the school team, the one Andy Jackson takes over after the crash?
Captain
Captain was Rob's job, and stepping into it eats at Andy. He knows the place was never going to be his while his friend was alive.
Q 21A classmate's essay in Tears of a Tiger would abolish Band-Aids, five-dollar bills and which food?
Peanut butter
Peanut butter was a treat until his mother left; now free jars of it are sometimes all there is to eat. The bandages never match his skin, and five dollars paid for the drinks on the night of the crash.
Q 22Which subject does the author say Tears of a Tiger deliberately leaves out of its teenage world?
Gangs
Gangs, drugs and sex are all absent by design. She wanted ordinary kids dealing with homework, families and girlfriends, so that any reader could picture being in that car.
Q 23On what kind of road does Andy Jackson crash his car on the night Rob Washington dies?
An expressway
Q 14Which minor character, one of Andy Jackson's teammates, is the hero of the trilogy's second novel?
Gerald
Gerald is only a face in the crowd here, one of the boys on the team. The sequel rewinds to his early childhood and tells his story from the age of three.
Q 15Which novel is the sequel to Tears of a Tiger, its first chapter adapted from a short story?
Forged by Fire
Forged by Fire won its author a major award of its own. Its opening chapter had already been published in a magazine as a prize-winning story.
Q 16Which novel ends the trilogy begun by Tears of a Tiger, following Andy Jackson's ex-girlfriend?
Darkness Before Dawn
Darkness Before Dawn picks up with the friends in their final year of school, still shaken by Andy's death. At graduation it is the girl who loved him who gives the closing speech.
Q 17Tears of a Tiger won the 'Genesis' prize for new talent given alongside which American book honor?
Coretta Scott King Award
The Coretta Scott King Award honors Black authors and illustrators of books for young readers. Its new-talent prize, later named for John Steptoe, went to this novel in its very first year.
Q 18In which Ohio city's public schools did the author of Tears of a Tiger teach English for decades?
Cincinnati
Cincinnati is where she built her teaching career, though she was born in Cleveland. She was named National Teacher of the Year while still in the classroom there.
Q 19After 24 rejection notices, which publisher finally said yes to the manuscript of Tears of a Tiger?
Simon & Schuster
Simon & Schuster sent the one acceptance out of twenty-five submissions. The author says she nearly threw the envelope away unopened, sure it was another no.
Q 20Which visitors, sent in after Rob Washington's death, strike his classmates as no help at all?
Grief counselors
Grief counselors are brought in from downtown, and one girl writes that they mostly sat about looking sympathetic. What helped, she says, was talking with friends in small groups.
An expressway is where it happens, late at night after the game. Rob, riding in the front passenger seat, is the only one of the four who does not get out.
Q 24In Tears of a Tiger, who dismisses Andy Jackson's grief as not serious because he is Black?
His own teachers
His own teachers say it to each other, in one of the book's sharpest scenes about race. One reviewer praised its picture of a system that will not trust or reach out to boys like Andy.
Q 25What does Rob Washington do in the nightmare that Andy Jackson has while babysitting his brother?
Blames him for dying
Rob blames him for dying, which gives Andy's guilt a face and a voice. The dream comes while he is at home looking after his six-year-old brother.
Q 26What do Andy Jackson's classmates write to him after his death, near the end of Tears of a Tiger?
Letters
Letters let each friend say what they never said to his face: one is furious, another cannot stop reliving the crash.
Q 27The sequel to Tears of a Tiger turns from drunk driving and grief to which hard subject?
Child abuse
Child abuse is at the center of the second book, which follows a boy trying to shield his younger sister. Like this novel, it refuses to give its readers an easy ending.
Q 28The author of Tears of a Tiger, then a teacher, says she wrote it partly during which school period?
Study hall
Study hall gave her writing time, along with weekends, summers and the hours before and after school. She wrote it for teenagers in their own style, about their own world.
Q 29Who dared the future author of Tears of a Tiger to write something and enter a story contest?
One of her students
One of her students, a ninth grader, handed her the entry form and told her to write something. Her story won first prize, and the novel followed.
Q 30Which description fits Andy Jackson's mother and father as Tears of a Tiger presents them?
Loving but preoccupied
Loving but preoccupied is the author's own verdict: they care about Andy yet are too busy with their own lives to see his pain. He complains that his father has not come to a single game all season.