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

His turreted Victorian boyhood home now serves fixed-menu lunches, and the National Steinbeck Center is two blocks away.

Q 02/05

Steinbeck's paternal grandfather helped found Mount Hope, a short-lived farming colony in which region?

A) Kansas

B) Argentina

C) Palestine

D) South Australia

Answer · why

C) Palestine

It broke up after Arab attackers killed his brother; Steinbeck visited the site in Tel Aviv in 1966.

Q 03/05

Harvesting which crop with migrant workers gave Steinbeck material for Of Mice and Men?

A) Grapes

B) Oranges

C) Sugar beets

D) Cotton

Answer · why

C) Sugar beets

At the Spreckels Sugar Company he sometimes worked in the laboratory, which gave him time to write.

Q 04/05

Which university did Steinbeck attend, leaving without a degree in 1925?

A) Pomona

B) Berkeley

C) Stanford

D) Occidental

Answer · why

C) Stanford

He studied English literature there, then tried and failed to make it as a writer in New York.

Q 05/05

Steinbeck met his first wife Carol Henning while working as a tour guide and caretaker where?

A) Big Sur

B) Carmel

C) Lake Tahoe

D) Yosemite

Answer · why

C) Lake Tahoe

They married in 1930 in Los Angeles, where he briefly tried a doomed manufacturing venture with friends.