The Hate U Give
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50 free The Hate U Give trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Hate U Give follows Starr, a sixteen-year-old who moves between two very different worlds and becomes the only witness when an officer shoots her unarmed friend Khalil. Angie Thomas's debut opened at number one on the New York Times young adult bestseller list, became a fixture of school reading lists and book clubs, and reached cinemas in 2018. This quiz covers the whole story: the traffic stop and its aftermath, Starr's family and friends, the gangs and the protests, and the symbols and ideas teachers ask about, from code-switching to the meaning of the title. There are also questions on the author, the awards and bans the book has faced, its companion novels and the people who made the film. It is written for students checking their reading, teachers who want a ready-made multiple-choice quiz to play or print, and readers who simply loved the book. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches you something about the novel.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In The Hate U Give, what object in Khalil's car does the officer claim he mistook for a gun?
A hairbrush
A hairbrush with a thick black handle lay in the car door, as the activist lawyer April Ofrah later reveals. Protesters turn that fact into a chant.
Q 02The title The Hate U Give comes from an acronym coined by which rapper, who wore it as a tattoo?
Tupac Shakur
Tupac Shakur spelled out THUG LIFE as a warning that the hatred society feeds its children comes back to harm everyone. Khalil explains the idea to Starr minutes before the traffic stop.
Q 03In The Hate U Give, which 1990s show is Starr's favorite, its theme sung by her boyfriend?
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air mirrors Starr's own life, she says: a teenager sent from a rough neighborhood into a wealthy world. Unlike its hero, she feels she must hide who she is there.
Q 04Which actor, known as Rue in The Hunger Games, plays Starr in the 2018 film of The Hate U Give?
Amandla Stenberg
Amandla Stenberg was attached to the role almost a year before the novel reached bookstores. The performance won an NAACP Image Award for outstanding actress in a motion picture.
Q 05In The Hate U Give, Starr's parents gave her two talks at twelve: one about sex and one about what?
Dealing with the police
Dealing with the police meant doing as she was told and never talking back. Starr grows frightened when Khalil breaks those rules by asking the officer why he was pulled over.
Q 06Which Riverdale star replaced a fired actor as Starr's boyfriend in the film The Hate U Give?
KJ Apa
KJ Apa reshot the scenes in April 2018, months after filming had wrapped. YouTuber Kian Lawley lost the part when old footage of him using racial slurs resurfaced.
Q 07In The Hate U Give, Starr lives in which fictional, mostly Black neighborhood where her father runs a store?
Garden Heights
Garden Heights is home to Starr's family and oldest friends, yet she travels 45 minutes each way to a mostly white private school. The gap between those two worlds drives the novel.
Q 08Which pop star plays the friend whose racist remarks end her bond with Starr in the film The Hate U Give?
Sabrina Carpenter
Sabrina Carpenter joined the cast in August 2017, the year her Disney Channel series Girl Meets World ended. Her character's friendship with Starr breaks up once Starr starts challenging those remarks.
Q 09Which Grammy-winning rapper plays Starr's police detective uncle in the 2018 film The Hate U Give?
Common
Common plays the detective who helped raise Starr and serves on the same force as the officer who shot Khalil. Off screen he has an Academy Award too, for the song Glory from the film Selma.
Q 10In The Hate U Give, what does the grand jury decide about the officer who shot Khalil?
Not to indict him
The jurors vote not to indict him, and Starr hears the news over a car radio thirteen weeks after the shooting. Protests and riots fill the streets within hours.
Q 11In The Hate U Give, which mostly white private school does Starr attend, 45 minutes from her home?
Williamson Prep
Williamson Prep is where Starr has studied for six years, watching every word so that nobody can call her ghetto. Her parents sent her there after a childhood friend was shot.
Q 12In The Hate U Give, what is the name of Starr's father, a former gang member who owns a grocery store?
Maverick
Maverick leads his family in prayer to Black Jesus and teaches his children to speak out. Readers' interest in him as a father led Angie Thomas to write a prequel about his youth.
Q 13In The Hate U Give, what is the name of the older half-brother Starr shares with her friend Kenya?
Seven
Q 21In The Hate U Give, what name does Starr give the officer who shot Khalil, taken from his badge number?
One-Fifteen
One-Fifteen is the only name Starr uses for him through most of the novel, though the wider world learns he is Brian Cruise Jr. His father defends him in a sympathetic TV interview.
Q 22In The Hate U Give, a friend unfollows Starr's blog after she posts a photo of which 1955 lynching victim?
Emmett Till
Emmett Till was 14 when he was abducted and lynched in Mississippi, and his killers were acquitted. Starr later learns the friend simply did not want such posts in her feed.
Q 23In The Hate U Give, where does Starr anonymously share photos and memories under the name The Khalil I Know?
Tumblr
Seven is the son of Starr's father and Kenya's mother, which makes him a brother to both girls. He drives Starr home from school and hesitates to leave for college because of his sisters.
Q 14In The Hate U Give, what is the name of Starr's wealthy white boyfriend, whom she hides from her father?
Chris
Chris shares Starr's taste in sneakers and old sitcoms, and he stays beside her through a night of riots. That loyalty finally earns him an invitation to go boxing with her father.
Q 15In The Hate U Give, what is the name of Starr's uncle, a police detective who helped raise her?
Carlos
Carlos lives in a wealthier suburb and at first defends his colleague, which strains his bond with Starr. He later admits that nobody should be shot for opening a car door.
Q 16In The Hate U Give, which childhood friend did Starr see killed in a drive-by shooting at age ten?
Natasha
Natasha died in front of Starr, who dived into a rosebush for cover. That makes Khalil the second close friend Starr has watched being shot.
Q 17In The Hate U Give, which school friend does Starr punch after she says the officer did everyone a favor?
Hailey
Hailey had already unfollowed Starr's blog and refused to apologize for a string of racist remarks. The fight gets both girls suspended for three days.
Q 18In The Hate U Give, which teenager asks Starr's father for help getting out of a gang?
DeVante
DeVante had stolen $5,000 from the gang's leader and feared for his life. He ends up living with Starr's uncle and finally offers to turn witness against that leader.
Q 19In The Hate U Give, which gang controls Starr's streets and once counted her father as a member?
King Lords
The King Lords are led by King, the feared drug dealer who lives with the mother of Starr's half-brother. Their feud with a rival gang makes even a park or a party dangerous.
Q 20In The Hate U Give, what job does Starr's mother hold at a neighborhood clinic before moving to a hospital?
A nurse
A nurse at the start of the novel, she later lands a better-paid hospital post that lets the family afford a house in a safer area.
Tumblr lets Starr post childhood photos and small facts about her friend while the news calls him a suspected drug dealer. It is her first step toward speaking in public.
Q 24In The Hate U Give, which sport does Starr play on a school team and with her half-brother once a month?
Basketball
Basketball is also where her oldest school friend taunts her about fried chicken during a gym class game, a remark Starr calls out as racist.
Q 25In The Hate U Give, what does the local gang leader lay on Khalil's body at the funeral?
A gray bandana
A gray bandana would mark Khalil as one of the gang, and his grandmother throws it straight back. Starr later learns he had refused to join, so the gesture was only to save face.
Q 26At the final protest in The Hate U Give, what does Starr throw toward the police line?
A can of tear gas
A can of tear gas is thrown at her as she stands on a patrol car, moments after she leads the crowd in a chant. A photo of her throw makes the next day's front page.
Q 27At the end of The Hate U Give, the retiring Mr. Lewis gives Starr's father which premises to expand into?
His barbershop
His barbershop stood next door, and Mr. Lewis had spent the novel grumbling at his neighbor. He hands it over so that a bigger store can keep doing good in the neighborhood.
Q 28In The Hate U Give, why is Starr's detective uncle placed on leave from the police force?
He punched the shooter
He punched the shooter, his own colleague, on learning the man had pointed a gun at Starr. The officer's father complains about the attack in a television interview.
Q 29In The Hate U Give, Starr learns that Khalil had been selling drugs for which reason?
To repay his mother's debt
To repay his mother's debt, Khalil worked for the very dealer she had stolen from. He had turned down the gang itself, even as news reports painted him as a member.
Q 30In The Hate U Give, Starr's father makes his children recite the Ten-Point Program of which movement?
The Black Panthers
The Black Panthers shape how he argues: when Starr hesitates to testify, he answers with their ideas and those of Malcolm X. An older neighbor argues for nonviolent protest instead.