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SHORT ANSWER STUDY GUIDE QUESTIONS -
PART III
1. Why did the captain give the men an afternoon ashore when they arrived at the island?
2. What was Jim's first "mad notion"?
3. What did Jim witness from his hiding place in the thicket?
4. Who was the "Man of the
Vocabulary -
Part I: Using Prior Knowledge and Contextual Clues
Below are the sentences in which the vocabulary words appear in the text. Read the sentence. Use any clues you can find in the sentence combined with your prior knowledge, and write what you think the underlined words mean on the lines provided.
1. "There's a strong scour with the ebb," he said, "and this here passage has been dug out, in a manner of speaking, with a spade."
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2. Well, if I speak back, pikes will be going in two shakes; if I don't, Silver will see there's something under that, and the game's up.
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3. . . . I had now come out upon the skirts of an open piece of undulating, sandy country, about a mile long, dotted with a few pines, and a great number of contorted trees. . .
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4. This put me in a great fear, and I crawled under cover of the nearest live-oak, and squatted there, hearkening as silent as a mouse.
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5. And now I began to feel that I was neglecting my business; that since I had been so foolhardy as to come ashore with these desperadoes, the least I could do was to overhear them at their councils; and that my plain and obvious duty was to draw as close as I could manage, under the favorable ambush of the crouching trees.
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6. With a cry, John seized the branch of a tree, whipped the crutch out of his armpit, and sent that uncouth missile hurtling through the air.
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7. I was now, it seemed, cut off upon both sides; behind me the murderers, before me this lurking nondescript.
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8. "Three years!" I cried. "Were you shipwrecked?" "Nay, mate," said he, "---marooned."
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9. I now felt sure that the poor fellow had gone crazy in his solitude, and I suppose I must have shown the feeling in my face. . . . . . .
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10. Billy Bones was the mate; Long John, he was quartermaster; and they asked him where the treasure was.
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11. The cannon-shot was followed, after a considerable interval, by a volley of small arms.
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Part II: Determining the Meaning
Match the vocabulary words to their dictionary definitions. If there are words for which you cannot figure out the definition by contextual clues and by process of elimination, look them up in a dictionary.
___ 19. scour A. to listen; to give heed to
___ 20. pikes B. not easily described; of no particular class or kind
___ 21. undulating C. simultaneous discharge of arrows, bullets or the like
___ 22. hearkening D. to make clean and bright by friction; to clear away; diarrhea in cattle
___ 23. desperadoes E. moving up and down or backward and forward; undulating
___ 24. uncouth F. an officer whose duty is to provide quarters, clothing, etc. for troops
___ 25. nondescript G. foot soldiers' weapons consisting of long wooden shafts with steel points
___ 26. marooned H. desperate criminals; law-breakers
___ 27. solitude
___ 28. quartermaster J. state of being alone; seclusion
___ 29. volley K. to place or leave in hopeless isolation