Q 01/05

In which California town was John Steinbeck born in 1902?

A) Salinas

B) Monterey

C) Bakersfield

D) Fresno

Answer · why

A) Salinas

Salinas: he was born in a bedroom of the family's Victorian house on Central Avenue, which volunteers later turned into a lunch restaurant two blocks ...

Q 02/05

Steinbeck's German grandfather helped run Mount Hope, an 1850s Christian farm meant to teach Jews agriculture, in which region?

A) Russia

B) Argentina

C) Palestine

D) Poland

Answer · why

C) Palestine

Palestine, then under Ottoman rule: the farm outside Jaffa was abandoned after an 1858 raid in which his grandfather's brother was shot dead, and the ...

Q 03/05

Steinbeck took the title Of Mice and Men from a poem by which writer?

A) Robert Frost

B) William Blake

C) Robert Burns

D) John Keats

Answer · why

C) Robert Burns

Robert Burns's 'To a Mouse' warns that the best-laid schemes of mice and men often go wrong; Steinbeck swapped the line in for his working title, 'Som...

Q 04/05

Which university did Steinbeck drift in and out of for six years without graduating?

A) Pomona

B) Berkeley

C) Stanford

D) Occidental

Answer · why

C) Stanford

Stanford: he signed up only for the courses that interested him, mostly literature and writing, and kept dropping out to work on ranches before leavin...

Q 05/05

After winters alone as an estate caretaker, Steinbeck met his first wife Carol at a fish hatchery where?

A) Big Sur

B) Carmel

C) Lake Tahoe

D) Yosemite

Answer · why

C) Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe: he finished his first novel while isolated there through long winters, then took a summer job at the Tahoe City hatchery, where Carol walk...