The Road

Reading Check questions are designed for in-class review on key plot points or for quick verbal or written assessments. Multiple Choice and Short Answer Quizzes create ideal summative assessments, and collectively function to convey a sense of the work’s tone and themes.

Pages 1-77

Reading Check

1. Where do the man and boy keep their belongings?

2. What do the man and boy do for the burned man whom they meet on the road?

3. What does the man do to the stranger they meet in the woods?

4. What does the man find in the abandoned truck trailer?

Multiple Choice

1. Why are the man and the boy headed south?

A) They are being hunted by blood cults.

B) They need to get to a warmer place.

C) They have exhausted all the food in the area.

D) They want to be somewhere new after a loss.

2. Why does the man want the boy to drink all of the Coca-Cola?

A) It’s the boy’s birthday.

B) The man has a rotting tooth that’s going untreated.

C) It’s the last one the boy will ever have.

D) The boy has been brave.

3. Where do the man and boy go that scares the boy?

A) the man’s childhood home

B) an open grave

C) the dark woods

D) a hospital

4. What little promise does the man break, leading the boy to worry he’ll break big ones?

A) keeping the amount of food they have left to himself

B) giving the boy all the hot cocoa instead of splitting it

C) saying he wants to die

D) mentioning the boy’s mother

5. What do the man and the boy find to eat in the woods?

A) a dead rabbit

B) termites

C) morel mushrooms

D) a stash of canned goods

6. What happens to the man’s picture of his wife?

A) He loses it in a forest fire.

B) He leaves it in the road.

C) It is stolen when they are away from their camp.

D) He gives it to his son.

7. What does the boy ask his father after the shooting?

A) why he used one of their last bullets

B) i they’re still the good guys

C) if they’ll be safe from retaliation

D) if he will have to kill someone himself

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is the significance of the two bullets left in the gun?

2. What memory does the man have from his childhood that he thinks of fondly?

3. Why does the man’s wife leave them?

4. Why does the man fill the bathtub with water when the clocks stop?

5. What is implied by the bones that they find after their encounter with the stranger?

Pages 77-175

Reading Check

1. What do they find in the basement of the large house they search?

2. What do the man and boy call their sense of purpose?

3. Why can’t the man and the boy stay in the bunker?

4. What is the purpose of the wooden bullets the man carves?

Multiple Choice

1. Why does the boy worry about the dog they find?

A) He thinks it will attack them at night.

B) He thinks his father might kill it for food.

C) He thinks it will alert others to their presence.

D) He thinks it’s a sign that there are no more people where they are.

2. What do they find on the road that the man knows is a sign?

A) markings carved into trees

B) abandoned piles of clothes

C) human heads arranged on spikes

D) bones of animals strung up

3. What does the man tell the boy he must do if he is found?

A) run as fast as he can into the wilderness

B) shoot whoever finds him without hesitation

C) hide wherever he can

D) kill himself with the last bullet in the gun

4. When the man smells cows in the barn, what does he assume?

A) There must be farm animals loose somewhere nearby.

B) There will be fresh water on the land.

C) All cows are extinct now.

D) The cows must have starved to death without people to care for them.

5. What does the man tell the boy that good guys do?

A) They take care of each other.

B) They keep trying.

C) They fight back against bad guys.

D) They don’t compromise their beliefs.

6. Why is the boy apprehensive about the food they find in the bunker?

A) He worries that they are in a trap.

B) He worries that they are taking it from someone who is still alive.

C) He thinks it must have gone bad by now.

D) He knows the man won’t let him have it all.

7. What is Ely’s worldview?

A) The people have to keep trying.

B) The world ending is God’s judgment on them.

C) There must be a place where people survived.

D) Things will be better when everything is gone.

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does the boy think the man will lie to him about?

2. Why does the boy say he won’t remember giving food to Ely the same way the man will?

3. How does the boy react to the encounter in the large house?

4. Why does the man realize he’s an alien to the boy?

5. What does the boy do with the flute his father makes him?

6. What does the man tell Ely he doesn’t understand about his son?

Pages 175-287

Reading Check

1. What happens to the child of the pregnant woman the man and boy see?

2. What do the man and boy do to celebrate what they found on the boat?

3. What happens to the boy on the beach that forces them to stay put for several days?

4. What happens to the man at the end of the novel?

5. What happens to the boy at the end of the novel?

Multiple Choice

1. Why does the gas tank run dry early?

A) The tank has a leak in its seam.

B) The boy forgot to tighten the nozzle.

C) The gas has gone bad.

D) The man misjudged how full it was.

2. What does the man remember from his childhood when he is sick with a fever?

A) a hunting trip when he missed killing a deer cleanly

B) a warren of snakes being lit on fire by men

C) a forest fire claiming his uncle’s cabin

D) a dog that had leapt to its death in search of the water below

3. Why is the boy disappointed by the ocean?

A) It’s not blue.

B) It’s bitterly cold.

C) There’s no one there with whom to play.

D) They can’t stay there either.

4. What causes them to stay out past dark on the beach?

A) The man has trouble swimming back to shore.

B) The boy leaves the pistol behind.

C) They have to hide from strangers approaching.

D) Their cart can’t move through the sand.

5. What does the man do to the stranger who steals their cart?

A) He forces him to strip and leaves him defenseless.

B) He kills him with his last bullet.

C) He ties him up and leaves him in the road.

D) He gives him some food and forces him to walk in the opposite direction at gunpoint.

6. What person that they met on their journey does the boy bring up in one of his last conversations with his father?

A) Ely

B) the burned man

C) the stranger that his father killed

D) the little boy

Short-Answer Response

Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why does the man leave the Spanish coin he finds in the field?

2. Why doesn’t the boy want the man to tell him stories anymore?

3. Why is the boy concerned about whoever might have been on the boat?

4. Why does the boy become so upset after their encounter with the stranger?

5. What change of heart does the man have about what the boy should do after he’s gone?

6. What does the boy say about the people burned in the road for which he is later sorry?