The Other Wes Moore
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40 free The Other Wes Moore trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Two boys named Wes Moore grew up a few miles apart in Baltimore, both without their fathers at home and both in trouble before they were teenagers. One became a bestselling author, soldier and politician. The other is in prison for his part in a robbery that left a man dead. The book that tells both stories asks why, and refuses to settle for one easy answer. This quiz follows the book in order: the opening chapters and the two families, the first arrests, the mothers' hard choices, the mentors who stepped in, the manhunt, the trial and the epilogue. A handful of questions cover the author's life since the book came out. It is written for students reading the book in class, for book clubs, and for anyone who wants to check how closely they read. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which famous scholarship sent author Wes Moore to Oxford just as the other Wes Moore went to prison?
Rhodes
Rhodes scholars study at Oxford, where Moore earned a master's degree in international relations. The mayor he interned for, a past winner himself, pushed him to apply.
Q 02What kind of business do four armed men rob in the crime at the center of The Other Wes Moore?
A jewelry store
A jewelry store was the target, hit in February 2000 by four men carrying mallets and guns. An off-duty police sergeant chased them outside and was shot dead in the parking lot.
Q 03Wes Moore, author of The Other Wes Moore, later became the first Black governor of which state?
Maryland
Maryland elected him in 2022, making Moore only the third Black person ever elected governor of any US state. He was sworn in the following January.
Q 04What sentence did the other Wes Moore receive after a jury convicted him of felony murder?
Life without parole
Life without parole was the sentence, and he was the last of the four robbers to receive one. His lawyer had asked the judge to leave him a chance of parole.
Q 05Which NBA star's company, Unanimous Media, announced plans in 2021 to film The Other Wes Moore?
Stephen Curry
Stephen Curry signed on as executive producer when his Unanimous Media took up the book. It was the second attempt: a film version backed by a media mogul had been announced in 2012.
Q 06Which future US president once attended Riverdale, the Bronx private school of author Wes Moore?
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy studied at Riverdale from 1927 to 1930, when his family lived nearby. Joy Moore worked three jobs to send her son there, hoping the school would be his way out of the neighborhood.
Q 07Which religion did the other Wes Moore adopt in prison, at first to see his brother at services?
Islam
Islam began as a way to meet Tony at Friday prayers, but Wes became a devout believer and a leader among the prison's worshippers. By the book's end he was working inside as a carpenter.
Q 08Author Wes Moore took his 2023 oath as governor on a Bible once owned by which abolitionist?
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass owned one of the two Bibles Moore swore on that day. The other was his grandfather's, the minister who helped raise him in the Bronx.
Q 09Which military school did Joy Moore choose for her son Wes after his grades collapsed in the Bronx?
Valley Forge
Valley Forge, a military academy in Pennsylvania, turned him around after he tried to run away four times in his first four days. He stayed through junior college and rose to command the whole cadet regiment.
Q 10In The Other Wes Moore, the author's mother Joy left which island for the Bronx as a small child?
Jamaica
Jamaica was home until Joy was three, when her father moved the family so he could study theology. She fit in by studying her new classmates' speech and copying it.
Q 11Uncle Howard warned teenage Wes Moore not to rest every hope on a pro career in which sport?
Basketball
Basketball had colleges writing to him as the only sophomore starter on his school team. His uncle's reminder of the long odds stuck, and Moore soon saw he lacked the talent of true pro prospects.
Q 12As a White House Fellow, author Wes Moore worked as a special assistant to which Secretary of State?
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice took Moore on as a special assistant in 2006, soon after his Army tour overseas. He went on to work as a banker at Citibank.
Q 13Author Wes Moore deployed as an Army officer with the 82nd Airborne Division to which country?
Afghanistan
Q 21Which illness, mistaken by doctors for a sore throat, killed Westley Moore, the author's father?
Acute epiglottitis
Acute epiglottitis closed his airway hours after a hospital sent him home with an anesthetic. Joy chose not to sue, and the settlement paid to train paramedics in a technique for patients who cannot breathe.
Q 22Federal cuts ended which form of college aid for Mary Moore, forcing her to abandon her degree?
Pell Grant
Pell Grant money covered what her low-paid job at a medical center could not. The author later argued that losing it changed the whole family's future.
Q 23What does the other Wes Moore fetch from home as a child after a boy punches him in a football game?
A knife
Afghanistan was his posting from 2005 into 2006, on leave from a job in finance. He rushed home from the deployment to see his dying grandfather but arrived too late.
Q 14Where was author Wes Moore studying abroad when his mother phoned about the hunt for his namesake?
South Africa
South Africa hosted his semester in a Cape Town township, where a host family took him in. His mother's call about the other Wes Moore reached him there, an ocean away from Baltimore.
Q 15Through which federal program did the other Wes Moore earn a GED and train as a carpenter?
Job Corps
Job Corps gave him the happiest months of his life: he finished his GED within a month and built a five-foot-high house for his daughter. Low-paid jobs afterward pulled him back to dealing.
Q 16Whose autobiography persuaded cadet Wes Moore that the Army offered a young Black man a fair shot?
Colin Powell
Colin Powell argued that the Army judged soldiers more fairly than the country did, and Moore was won over. He stayed on for junior college and earned an officer's commission.
Q 17The Other Wes Moore, which its author nearly titled Baltimore Sons, carries which subtitle?
One Name, Two Fates
One Name, Two Fates sums up the premise: two boys called Wes Moore from the same city, one bound for Oxford and the other for prison. The book closes with a list of about 200 groups that help young people.
Q 18Mary Moore won a place at which Baltimore university, the one author Wes Moore later graduated from?
Johns Hopkins
Johns Hopkins stood five miles from where Mary grew up, yet she had to give up her place when her college aid was cut. The author arrived years later with a scholarship and graduated Phi Beta Kappa.
Q 19What was the profession of Westley Moore, the author's father, who died when Wes was three?
Broadcast journalist
Broadcast journalist Westley Moore had reported around the country before hosting his own public affairs show. His son wrote that researching the book was a way to honor that legacy.
Q 20In the opening scene of The Other Wes Moore, which sister does three-year-old Wes playfully punch?
Nikki
Nikki, seven years older, was the target, and his mother sent him to his room shouting that he must never hit a woman. His father's gentle talk afterward is one of only two memories Wes has of him.
A knife from the kitchen was his answer, with his brother's advice about sending a message ringing in his head. Police got to him first and handcuffed him, an arrest his mother only learned of years later.
Q 24Which piece of gear, worn by paid lookouts, first drew the other Wes Moore into the drug trade?
A headset
A headset looked like the coolest thing Wes had ever seen, and the boys wearing them said he would be paid to watch for police. He told himself that keeping lookout was not really dealing.
Q 25What does Mary Moore do with the drugs she finds among her son Wes's belongings?
Flushes them down the toilet
Mary flushes them down the toilet, and Wes comes home shouting that she has thrown away $4,000. He soon moves his stash to a girlfriend's place and carries on.
Q 26After the shootout with Ray in The Other Wes Moore, where does teenage Wes hide his gun?
In the fish tank
In the fish tank is where the gun ends up, sunk while his bloodied clothes go in the trash. Police arrest him at the house anyway, before his brother can get there.
Q 27In The Other Wes Moore, the stranger who pays Wes twenty dollars for crack turns out to be what?
An undercover cop
An undercover cop made the buy, and Wes had noticed the warning signs, down to the man's clean, smooth hands. He took the sale anyway and was surrounded by police within seconds.
Q 28Which Baltimore housing project, where Tony Moore dealt drugs, did he take young Wes to practice fighting?
Murphy Homes
Murphy Homes was known locally as the Murder Homes, and Tony was dealing there before he was even a teenager. The city later tore the towers down.
Q 29What accident with his sister Shani was the last straw before Joy Moore sent Wes to military school?
He split her lip
He split her lip with a stray punch thrown out of boredom, on the very day his school put him on probation. Joy slapped him, then broke down in tears, afraid she was losing her son.
Q 30What trick did older cadets play on new arrival Wes Moore when he tried to flee military school?
A fake map
A fake map, handed over by a sergeant with directions to the train station, led him into dark woods instead. His whole chain of command was waiting there, laughing.