The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Reading comprehension guide
Chapter 1
1. Who is actually more irritating to Huck than the widow?
2. Why is Huck living with the Widow Douglass?
3. What omen does Huck receive that the adventures beginning may be bad or dangerous?
Chapter 2
4. Where does Tom take Huck and their friends?
5. Whom does Huck offer as his “family” that may be killed if he should ever reveal the secrets of the gang?
6. Where had Tom got his ideas for organizing his gang?
Chapter 3
7. Whose idea of providence does Huck prefer?
8. What has become of Huck’s father?
9. What happens to the gang of robbers?
Chapter 4
10. What is six times seven?
11. Whose tracks does Huck recognize in the snow?
12. Why does he want Judge Thatcher to take all his money?
13. Does Judge Thatcher understand the situation?
14. What is a hairball and what properties does it have?
15. What does Kim say that the hair-ball tells him?
16. What does Huck Find when he returns to his room?
Chapter 5
17. What has Huck’s father come for?
18. What is Pap’s “new life” and how long does it last?
Chapter 6
19. What makes Huck begin to want to go to school?
20. What does Pap do?
Chapter 7
21. What does the “June rise” of the river float dow to Huck?
22. What does lie do with it?
23. Why does Huck wish Tom Sawyer were there?
24. What is the purpose of killing the pig and leaving the bloody ax?
Chapter 8
25. Where does Huck go when he escapes for the father?
26. How does he get there?
27. Why does the ferryboat fire its cannon out over the water?
28. Why are the loaves of bread floated over the water?
29. How long is Huck on the island before he realizes that somebody else is living on it, too?
30. What does the following expression mean “There warn’t much sand in my craw”?
31. Who is the man that has been living on the island?
32. Why has the man from 31 run away?
33. Why is the man afraid of Huck at first?
Chapter 9
34. What superior abode do Huck and Jim find on the island?
35. Was Jim right about the birds’ flight portending rain?
36. Does Huck enjoy hiding out on the island, in the cavern?
37. What two important things doe the river float down to them?
Chapter 10
38. What does the title of this chapter indicate to you?
39. What is “one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do”?
Chapter 11
40. What are the rumors in town about Huck’s disappearance?
41. Why does the woman ask Huck to throw a bar of lead at the rats?
42. What other trick does she use to see if he is a girl or a boy?
Chapter 12
43. What does this title mean?
44. Why do Bill and Jake want to kill Jim Turner?
45. Why does Jake seem not to want to kill Turner?
Chapter 13
46. Why does Huck make up the story about mam and pap and sis and Miss Hooker which he tell to the ferryboat man?
47. Why does he want the robbers rescued?
Chapter 14
48. What is the purpose of this chapter?
Chapter 15
49. What is a towhead?
50. How do Huck and Jim become separated?
51. What trick does Huck play on Jim?
Chapter 16
52. What is Huck and Jim’s plan?
53. What bothers Huck as they near the point where Jim will be free?
54. What is Jim’s dream?
55. What do Huck and Jim plan to do with the money they find in the skiff stolen from the wrecked steamboat?
56. Why do they not follow this plan?
57. What do they believe caused their bad luck?
58. Is Jim bitter at Huck for causing his bad luck?
59. What happens to separate Jim and Huck again?
Chapter 17
60. What do the Grangerfords first think of Huck?
61. What problem does Huck have when he wakes up in the morning at the Grangerford’s house?
62. What kind of people are the Grangerfords? Are they just feuding hillbillies?
Chapter 18
63. What does Huck find in the spot where he is told he will see “a whole stack o’ water moccasins”?
64. Why did Jack not tell Huck that Jim was there?
Chapter 19
65. How do Huck and Jim arrange their traveling during this time?
66. What had the two fugitives been doing to get into trouble
67. What is a temperance revival?
68. Who do the two men say they are?
69. What is the result of the claims of the two men?
Chapter 20
70. How does Huck convince the men that Jim is not a runaway slave?
71. How does the duke arrange things so that they can travel in the daytime?
Chapter 21
72. What do the king and the duke plan to do to get money?
73. What names do they assume for their theater?
Chapter 22
74. Why does the duke decide to change the kind of show they will put on?
75. The sign saying “Ladies and Children not admitted” brings in a good audience. Why?
Chapter 23
76. What does Huck think of the king?
77. Is Huck’s history accurate at all?
Chapter 24
78. How does the duke arrange things so that Jim doesn’t have to lie in the wigwam all day to avoid being thought a runaway slave?
79. Where does the king get the information he needs to swindle the Wilks girls?
Chapter 25
80. Who are the three Wilks sisters?
81. Do the kind and the duke have any trouble convincing the people that they are Peter Wilks’ brothers?
82. What is flapdoodle?
83. Why do the king and the duke add $415 of their own money to that hidden in the cellar?
Chapter 26
84. Why doesn’t Joanna eat at the table with the others?
85. What makes Huck want to help the sisters?
86. Who is the only other person in town who doesn’t believe the kind and duke are the real uncles?
87. How does Huck find out where the king and duke have hidden the money?
88. How is it that they have this money in their possession, since they had given it to the girls?
89. Where is the money hidden?
Chapter 27
90. Where does Huck hide the money after he takes it from the king’s room?
91. What upsets the girls in the settling of the estate?
92. How does Huck escape the suspicion of having stolen the money? Why?
Chapter 28
93. Why does Huck reveal the plot to Mary Jane?
94. What is Huck’s plan?
95. What proof can she use that the two men are dishonest?
Chapter 29
96. What went wrong with Huck’s plan to get away?
97. How do the king and the duke behave?
98. What had delayed them?
Chapter 30
99. How do Huck, the king and the duke get away from the crowd when Peter Wilks’ body is uncovered?
100. What saves Huck from being accused y the king and the duke of stealing the money?
Chapter 31
101. How had Jim been captured?
102. What does Huck tell the duke when he sees him the next day?
103. Does the duke tell Huck the truth about jim’s whereabouts?
Chapter 32
104. How is Huck almost trapped into telling Aunt Sally that he isnit who she things he is?
105. Hoe does he avoid this?
106. What makes Aunt Sally assume he is Tom Sawyer?
Chapter 33
107. What does Tom think when he sees Huck on the road?
108. Who do they tell the Phelpses that the real Tom is?
109. What happens to the king and the duke?
110. How does Huck feel about this?
Chapter 34
111. Who finds out where Jim is?
112. What clues does he recognize?
Chapter 35
113. Why do Tom and Huck have to make up so many of their own difficulties in helping Jim escape?
114. What are some of the things that must be done by and for the prisoner before he can escape?
Chapter 36
115. What is “letting on”?
116. Why is it important in this chapter?
Chapter 37
117. What does Aunt Sally miss from her household that nearly reveals the plot?
118. What do Tom and Huck do to confuse her completely?
Chapter 38
119. Why does Jim have to make and inscription on the wall?
120. What does “smouched” mean?
Chapter 39
121. How long does it take to get everything well arranged for a proper prisoner?
122. What are “nonnamous letters”?
123. Why is Aunt Sally getting so nervous?
Chapter 40
124. What makes Huck begin to think something has gone wrong when Aunt Sally catches him in the cellar getting butter?
125. Is Tom alarmed to hear about the farmers?
126. Why aren’t the dogs any help in finding the runaway and the boys?
127. What spoils their getaway?
Chapter 41
128. What do the farmers and their wives think has been causing all the mischief around the plantation?
129. Does Aunt Sally begin to suspect that the boys had a hand in it?
Chapter 42
130. What does the title of this chapter tell you immediately?
131. What makes the crowd feel more lenient toward Jim?
132. How does the truth about the episode come out?
133. Why had he thought that Him would be free?
134. Why does Aunt Polly arrive?
135. Why hadn’t Aunt Sally answered Polly’s letters asking about Tom and Sid?
Chapter 43
136. What had Tom planned for Jim?
137. What does Tom do for Him to make up for all the trouble of being a prisoner?
138. Why does Huck think he can’t go on adventures in the Indian territory?
139. What does he learn from Tom about his money and from Jim about his father?
Chapter 29
140. What is wrong with Huck’s plan to get away?
141. How do the kind and the duke behave?
142. What had delayed them?
143. Ho