Sonny receives an autographed picture of Dr. Von Braun for which occasion?
a. Christmas
b. His birthday
c. Winning the national science fair
d. The successful launch of Auk XXX to a height of six miles
In Chapter 9, Sonny asks his father what was the hardest thing he’d ever learned. "He smiled. 'Because even though I know it to be true, I don't want it to be true. I hate that it's true. I just can't imagine," he concluded heading back inside his office, "what God was thinking.'" The thing that Homer's dad is talking about in this quote is _____?
a. enthropy, the thermodynamic tendency of everything to move toward confusion and disorder as time passes.
b. the closing of the Coalwood mine when the coal was gone
c. the suspension of the Big Creek High School football team after the football fathers unsuccessful appeal
d. none of the above
In Chapter 24, "A Suit For Indianapolis” Sonny and a friend meet which important person after they go shopping in Welch for an outfit for the big science fair?
a. Senator John F. Kennedy
b. Dr. Wernher Von Braun
c. rock and roll singer Little Richard
d. none of the above
In Chapter 15, Mr. Turner, the Big Creek High School principal says which of the follow when explaining why Sonny is not allowed to take calculus?
a. Life is ironic. “Mr. Hickham , you have just learned a great lesson of life and it is this: Life is quite often ironic. You worked to get this class and now you will not be able to take it.”
b. The odds are against him. “Once in a while a lucky one will get out [of high school] on a football scholarship.”
c. He is out of luck. "In the queer mass of human destiny, the determining factor has always been luck."
d. He doesn’t need calculus. "You come from the best, hardest-working people in the world. You come from the toughest state in the Union. The Russians? I pity them. If they knew you like I know you, they'd be shaking in their boots!"
"One by one Sherman, O'Dell, Roy Lee, and Quentin placed their hands on top of mine. 'Rocket Boys,' I said. 'Rocket Boys forever!'" In chapter 10, a new boy joins them for the launch of Auk X. His name is _____?
a. Billy Rose
b. Calvin Suggs
c. John Eye Blevins
d. none of the above
In Chapter 13, Geneva Eggers saves Sonny from freezing to death when he attempts to sled back home from school during a snow storm. All of the following statements about Geneva are false EXCEPT for which true one?
a. After the rescue, Sonny looks for Geneva as the school bus goes by, but never waves and never mentions her to his mother.
b. Geneva saved Homer, Sr. when he was an infant. She rescuing him from a burning building, but did not save anyone else in the house.
c. As the town prostitute, Geneva teaches Sonny about having sex, in the backseat of an old Dodge.
d. Geneva is a widow who never remarried after her husband was killed in the mine. This lets her be one of Jake Mosby’s many “girlfriends” who he brings to watch launches.
“Until I began to build and launch rockets, I didn't know my hometown was at war with itself over its children and that my parents were locked in a kind of bloodless combat over how my brother and I would live our lives. I didn't know that if a girl broke your heart, another girl, virtuous at least in spirit, could mend it on the same night. And I didn't know that the enthalpy decrease in a converging passage could be transformed into jet kinetic energy if a divergent passage was added. The other boys discovered their own truths when we built our rockets, but those were mine.”
Identify the pair who break and mend Sonny’s heart on the same night.
a. BREAK: Dorothy Plunk, MEND: Valentine Carmina
b. BREAK: Dorothy Plunk, MEND: Emily Sue Buckberry
c. BREAK: Miss Freida Riley, MEND: Geneva Eggers
d. BREAK: Esther Bykovski, MEND: Dorothy Plunk
