The Things They Carried

This flexible-use quiz is designed for reading comprehension assessment and activity needs in classroom, home-schooling and other settings. Questions connect to the text’s plot, characters, and themes — and align with the content and chapter organization in the rest of this study guide. Use quizzes as pre-reading hooks, reading checks, discussion starters, entrance/exit “tickets,” small group activities, writing activities, and lessons on finding evidence and support in a text.

Depth of Knowledge Levels: Questions require respondents to demonstrate ability to: 

1. Recall and Understand Content (e.g., who, what, where, when) 
2. Apply and Analyze Ideas (e.g., how and why)

1. In “The Things They Carried,” the narrator repeatedly mentions the death of which one of his fellow soldiers?

A)   Jimmy Cross

B)   Ted Lavender

C)    Mitchell Sanders

D)   Rat Kiley

2. According to the narrator, what are the men most afraid of?

A)   showing their fear

B)   being wounded

C)    the death of their friends

D)   getting reassigned

3. What does Lieutenant Jimmy Cross do with Martha’s photos and letters after one of his men dies?

A)   rips them up

B)   continues to carry them

C)    sends them back to her

D)   burns them

4. What gift from his father does Kiowa carry?

A)   tranquilizers

B)   a toothbrush

C)    a New Testament

D)   a pebble

5. In “Love,” who does the narrator visit with many years after the war?

A)   Kiowa

B)   Mitchell Sanders

C)    Henry Dobbins

D)   Jimmy Cross

6. What is the average age of the men in the narrator’s platoon?

A)   19 to 20

B)   23 to 24