A Novel By Daniel Keyes
This study guide contains comprehension questions based on each section, vocabulary lists, creative tasks and practice essay topics.
Sample Questions
Progress Reports 7 and 8
1. In report 7 Charlie begins to put a line through words he has spelled incorrectly. Why does he start to do this?
2. On page 11 Charlie suggests that smart people have many friends and never get lonely. Is this true?
3. Hilda, the nurse, tells Charlie that the doctors may not have had any right performing the operation on him to make him smart because if God had wanted him to be smart ‘he would have born me that way’. She also mentions the Adam and Eve story and their fall after eating from the tree of knowledge. Does Charlie understand the importance of what Hilda tells him?
4. Why is Charlie impatient about wanting to be smart straight after the operation?
5. Why does Charlie begin to ‘hate that mouse’?
6. On page 14 Charlie uses the word ‘stoopid’ twice. Why?
7. Charlie reveals his mother used to make him pray to God so he would ‘get better and not be sick’. How do you feel in response to this?
8. On page 16 we learn that Algernon and Charlie had the same kind of operation. What does this imply will happen to Charlie?
9. When Charlie returns to work at the bakery he writes about having fun with his friends. In reality, we know his ‘friends’ were making fun of him. Give an example which demonstrates this.
10. What does the phrase ‘he really pulled a Charlie Gordon’ really mean?
11. Explain how the teaching machine which Professor Nemus gives Charlie works. How does Charlie react to using the machine?
12. Who is Fanny Birden? How does she treat Charlie?
13. Dr Strauss tells Charlie he has ‘two minds’ – a conscious mind and a subconscious mind. Explain what these concepts mean.
14. Why does Charlie’s attitude to Algernon change on page 22 in the March 29 entry? Why does he decide to be ‘frends with Algernon’?
15. Charlie observes that Miss Kinnian looks ‘yunger’ than he remembers her. Why might this be the case?
16. Miss Kinninan begins to read Robinson Crusoe with Charlie. What similarities can you identify between Charlie’s life and the life of the main character in this book?
17. In the final entry for report 8 Charlie states Miss Kinnian is teaching him to spell better. She says spelling is not supposed to ‘make sence’. Choose 5 words from this progress report which you find challenging to spell and write each one out 5 times.
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