Q 01/05

What name does Jim Smiley give the frog he bets can out-jump any other in Calaveras County?

A) Davy Crockett

B) Dan'l Webster

C) Sam Houston

D) Dan'l Boone

Answer · why

B) Dan'l Webster

Dan'l Webster spends three months in Jim Smiley's back yard doing nothing but practicing his jumps. Traveled men in the camp say he beats any frog the...

Q 02/05

What does a stranger spoon into Jim Smiley's champion frog while Smiley is off finding it a rival?

A) River sand

B) Iron filings

C) Quail shot

D) Creek gravel

Answer · why

C) Quail shot

Quail shot goes in by the teaspoon until the frog is full nearly to his chin and cannot leave the floor. Smiley, lifting him afterwards, swears he wei...

Q 03/05

Calaveras County, home of Mark Twain's jumping frog, is named with a Spanish word meaning what?

A) Canyons

B) Skulls

C) Oak groves

D) Waterfalls

Answer · why

B) Skulls

Skulls is what calaveras means: explorer Gabriel Moraga is said to have named the river after finding the remains of Native Americans along its banks ...

Q 04/05

What was the birth name of Mark Twain, who first won national attention with a jumping frog story?

A) Eric Blair

B) Charles Dodgson

C) William Porter

D) Samuel Clemens

Answer · why

D) Samuel Clemens

Samuel Clemens took the name Mark Twain from a riverboat leadsman's cry for two fathoms, the depth of safe water for a steamboat.

Q 05/05

From which language did Mark Twain retranslate his jumping frog story word for word, as a joke?

A) French

B) German

C) Italian

D) Russian

Answer · why

A) French

French was the language of an 1872 translation by Thérèse Bentzon. Twain turned it back into English with its grammar intact and published all three v...