Name:
Please write your answers on a separate piece of paper.
7th grade Advanced LA
Miss Idec
Ch 1
1.What is Sherlock’s position at school?
2.What do we learn about Sherlock that hints at his future career?
3.Why can’t Sherlock go home for summer term?
4.Name a couple of things we’ve learned about Mycroft.
5.Which two adjectives does the author use to describe Sherlock’s impressions of his instructors and what do they tell us about Sherlock’s character
6.Can you do the math to come up with 64?
7.What kind of welcome is Sherlock getting from the housekeeper?
8.Do you agree with Sherlock that his first actions could set the tone for the whole of his stay?
Ch 2
1.How did Sherlock respond to his Uncle Sherrinford’s question about the state of his soul and why do you think Sherlock answered that way?
2.What do we learn almost right away about Matty that shows that he’s had a very different upbringing than Sherlock?
3.Why do you think Sherlock winces when Matty asks him about sisters?
4.What do we learn about what happens to Victorian orphans with no means?
5. Why do Matty and Sherlock hit it off?
6.What kind of knowledge does Matty have? Why does he have it and could Sherlock ever find it useful?
7.What is that smell?!
8.What is an example of Sherlock’s strategic thinking?
9. There are two kinds of people and two kinds of dogs! What are they and what does that tell us about Victorian society?
10.What do you think is going on behind those gates?
11.What is distinctive about the man in the closed carriage?
7th grade Advanced LA
Miss Idec
Ch 3
1.What do you think could be at Brookwood
2. What’s one big difference between Sherlock and Matty?
3. Why do you think that Mycroft warns Sherlock about Mrs. Eglantine?
4. The sister shows up again! What is going on with her?
5. Do you agree with Sherlock that sometimes you just have to minimize the bad rather than maximizing the good?
6. What is the foundation of all rational thought, per Amyus Crowe?
7. Amyus Crowe has a wide-ranging mind. To what specific branch of knowledge does his anecdote about shifting populations of rabbits and foxes relate?
8. Sherlock prefers to stuff his brain with what kind of information, as opposed to mathematics?
9.What two details distinguish the corpse that Sherlock finds?
Ch 4
1.What is Crowe teaching Sherlock at the beginning of this chapter?
2. What tip on identifying people does Crowe give Sherlock?
3. What does Mrs. Eglantine think the cause of death was?
4.How does Sherlock feel about the forest and why is that unusual for him?
5. What does Sherlock learn about the dead man’s last moments and about where he died?
6. What do you think the clouds of smoke and yellow powder mean?
7.What did Sherlock do in case he decided that he really couldn’t stand being at Holmes Manor?
8.What important lesson in logic had Mycroft taught Sherlock?
7th grade Advanced LA
Miss Idec
Ch. 5 and 6
1.What did Sherlock do with the powder that he found by the dead body?
2.Where has Sherlock seen the man carrying the sack with yellow powder on his hands before?
3.What did Sherlock find on the other side of the wall?
4.Sherlock see ruts in the ground around the building, what deductions does he make?
5.How does Sherlock trick the dog so he can go into the yard?
6.What and who did Sherlock find in the building?
7.What specific directions were each set of worker given?
8.How do the men know that they are going to get paid, why won’t the Baron just take off with the money?
9.How does Sherlock manage to escape from the barn?
10.What did Sherlock learn after all that effort and all that danger in the building? (p. 93)
11.Who does Sherlock think the Baron might be?
12.What does the word ravenous mean on page 95?
13.What are Uncle Sherrinford’s feelings about death?
14.What do we learn about Mrs. Eglantine by her reaction to the discussion about death at the table?
15.Who’s the dead man that they find in the woods?
16.What things start to fit together?
17.Who does Sherlock meet at Amyus Crowe’s house?
18.Why does Sherlock decide to go to Guildford?
7th grade Advanced LA
Miss Idec
Ch.7
1.How does Sherlock resolve his moral dilemma regarding Matty’s stealing at the market?)
2.What is different about the market?
3. What talent does Matty demonstrate?
4. What subject keeps coming to Sherlock’s mind?
5. What lesson did Sherlock learn from Crowe’s hotel puzzle?
6. What is a navigation?
7. Trouble shows up in the form of who? What does he do?
8. Who rescues Sherlock and how?
9.What are you wondering about at the end of ch 7?
Ch 8
1.What is Sherlock wondering about?
2. What does Sherlock feel bad about?
3. How does Matty react to mess into which Sherlock has put him?
4. A bit of humor; what is it?
5. What was the yellow powder and what were the boils?
6. Which other ongoing mystery has been explained by Professor Whitcombe?
7. How does Virginia interpret Sherlock’s desire to solve the yellow powder mystery?
7th grade Advanced LA
Miss Idec
Ch. 9
- What is Uncle Sherrinford mad at Sherlock for? How does Amyus Crowe feel about the issue? “Your brother … entrusted you into my care, with an understanding that I would continue with your moral education and prevent you from falling into bad company or bad ways.”
- Why does Sherlock want to write to Mycroft? What happens to the letter?
- Describe the fair that Sherlock went to, to meet Virginia? (in detail)
- What happened at the fair?
Ch. 10
- Where does Sherlock wake-up? What were in the boxes he saw out the window?
- What horrific thing happened at this place?
- Who saves Sherlock and how?
7th grade Advanced LA
Miss Idec
Ch 11
1.Crowe uses an English accent; why? (two reasons)
2. What does Sherlock acknowledge about the faked note from Virginia?
3. What was Crowe’s job in the United States?
4. Why is Crowe taking Sherlock, Virginia and Matty to London? (both the excuse to Uncle Sherrinford and the real reason)
5. Why doesn’t Sherlock say anything to Crowe about his suspicions about Mrs. Eglantine?
6. What else does Matty know that Sherlock doesn’t?
Ch 12
1.How is London different from the countryside?
2.Virginia exhibits an emotion that is unusual for her. What is it?
3. Who is the decently dressed boy who is about Matty’s age?
4. According to the narrator, what is remarkable about England?
5. What does Crowe warn Sherlock, and Matty about?
6. What are Crowe’s tips on how not to be noticed?
7. How does Crowe describe the emotions that are part of a hunt?
8.What clue are we given about the time period in which the novel is set?
9. How does Crowe demonstrate that he trusts Sherlock?
10. Who helps Sherlock, at what cost?
7th grade Advanced LA
Miss Idec
Ch. 13 and 14
- After Bill, the man that helped Sherlock, got stabbed where did Sherlock end up running to?
- What thought occurred to Sherlock when he saw the man selling clocks. What did he tell him?
- How did the fire start?
- Sherlock “ noticed the floor was heaving underneath the smoke…as if it were alive.” What was it?
- After emerging from the tunnel Sherlock inadvertently stumbled across what? Who does he bump into?
- They decide to try to find out where the boat is going. How does Sherlock go about doing this? Where is the boat going?
- What happens on the dock?
- When Sherlock wakes up where does he think he is? Where is he, actually?
- Who is Mr. Surd?
- What does Sherlock discover about the Baron? How does this account for his footmen wearing black masks?
- Sherlock tells the Baron how he “pieced it all together.” Explain what he figured out.
- Do you think he should have told the Baron all that he knew? Why did he do that? Why did the Baron have Virginia there?
7th grade Advanced LA
Miss Idec
Ch 15
1.How does Sherlock respond to Maupertuis’s summing up of his dastardly plan? Be specific.
2. Per Sherlock, why is the British Empire so strong?
3. What is Maupertuis’s slip of the tongue?
4. What action does Virginia take that clears up some mysteries and what is learned?
5. Why does the Baron wish to bring down the British Empire?
6.What past experience is proving highly valuable for the Baron?
7. What does Virginia use as weapons?
8.Which vulnerability does Sherlock exploit to beat the Baron and how does he do it?
Ch 16
1. Which idiosyncrasy of the Baron’s helps Sherlock and Virginia escape and how?
2. Where have Sherlock and Virginia headed and why?
3. Who are waiting for Sherlock and Virginia on board the Mrs. Eglantine?
4. Was Crow terrified because Sherlock and Virginia were in the Baron’s clutches and was that reasonable?
5. How will Crowe and Sherlock figure out which of the many offshore forts has the stash of bees?
6. As the four companions get close to the offshore fort, who will do what?
7. In what way are Sherlock and Matty very lucky as they first get to the fort?
8. What Sherlocklike thing does Sherlock do when he sees the beehives?
9. Which very good question does Matty ask?
10. What does Sherlock figure out about the bees/trays and why is that important?
11. Who shows up and why doesn’t he just kill Sherlock?
Death Cloud Detail Questions, student version