Animal Farm

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Chapters 1-4

Reading Check

1. Who is the owner of Manor Farm?

2. Who secretly plans a rebellion on the farm?

3. What is the farm renamed after the rebellion?

4. What is Boxer’s motto?

5. Who are the owners of the two adjacent farms?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why do the animals first gather in the barn?

2. What is the basic precept of Animalism?

3. What finally incites the rebellion on the farm?

4. Why are the Seven Commandments simplified into a single maxim?

5. What do the animals do with the gun secured during the Battle of the Cowshed?

Paired Resource

“20th Century Revolutions: Characteristics, Types, and Waves”

• This scholarly article examines the differences between the revolutions in the 19th and 20th centuries, classifying the latter into different types based on their characteristics.
• Teacher-appropriate (not student-facing)

Chapters 5-7

Reading Check

1. Which animal defects from Animal Farm to live a more conventional life outside it?

2. What is the new personal maxim Boxer adopts?

3. Who is appointed as an agent between Animal Farm and the outside world?

4. Which of the Seven Commandments do the pigs alter the text of?

5. Who is rumored to be lurking around the farm and conspiring against the animals there?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What are Snowball and Napoleon’s opposing stances on the windmill?

2. How does Napoleon oust Snowball?

3. How do the animals feel about outside trade with humans?

4. How does Napoleon explain the collapse of the windmill?

5. Why is “Beasts of England” abolished, according to Squealer?

Paired Resource

“Exposing Stalin’s Famine in Ukraine”

• This 1933 article comes from the Guardian archive describing the widespread man-made famine discovered in the Soviet Union as the correspondent was traveling through the country.
• What parallels do you see between the famine described in the article and the way things are unfolding on Animal Farm?

“Ukraine Remembers a Famine Under Stalin, and Points to Parallels With Putin”

• This transcript of an NPR segment recalls the famine in Ukraine under Stalin and draws parallels with the events in the country following its invasion and occupation by Putin’s Russia in 2022.
• In a repeat of history, the Russian government used hunger as a weapon against Ukrainian civilians in 2022. Can you identify a similar practice already happening to the characters in Animal Farm?

Chapters 8-10

Reading Check

1. Who blows up the windmill?

2. What new crop does Napoleon decide to plant on the farm?

3. Who returns to Animal Farm after many years?

4. What new Animalist precept is instituted?

5. What form of address does Napoleon eventually decide to abolish?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why does Napoleon switch allegiance to Mr. Frederick from Mr. Pilkington?

2. Why are the other animals confused by the pigs’ attitude toward Moses?

3. Where is Boxer sent after he is injured, and how does this benefit the pigs?

4. What replaced the original Seven Commandments, and who discovers this?

5. What are the other animals astonished to observe about the pigs and the humans?

Recommended Next Reads 

1984 by George Orwell

• This dystopian social science fiction novel by the same author describes a London society under a fictional totalitarian regime that uses thought control to maintain power.
• Shared topics include a critique of totalitarian regimes and the use of propaganda to ensure allegiance and obedience.
• 1984 on SuperSummary

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

• This allegorical novel features a group of young boys who attempt to form a society between themselves after their plane crash-lands on a jungle island.
• Shared topics include Equality Fails in Practice, attempts to establish a new and independent society, and the use of allegory. 
• Lord of the Flies on SuperSummary