Chapter 17 Questions and Answers
Study Questions
1. What is the name of the solicitor?
2. What does the word ambidextrous mean?
3. Why does Reverend Sykes ask Jem to take Dill and Scout home from the trial?
4. Where do the Ewells live?
5. Why does Scout get to stay during the explicit testimonies?
6. Where do Scout and Jem sit during the trial?
7. What does Scout mean when she says that Jem is counting his chickens?
8. Why is it important that Mr. Ewell signs his name with his left hand?
9. What excuse does Jem use for not taking Scout home?
10. What does it mean when Scout says the Ewells live as guests of the county?
Answers
1. The solicitor is Mr. Gilmer.
2. Ambidextrous means able to use both hands.
3. Reverend Sykes asks Jem to take Scout home because of the explicit details of the rape given during the trial.
4. They live “behind the town garbage dump in what had been a Negro cabin.”
5. Scout stays because Jem tells Reverend Sykes that she does not understand.
6. The children sit in the balcony during the trial.
7. It means Jem was counting on Atticus’s winning too soon.
8. It is significant that Mr. Ewell uses his left hand to write his name because it shows that he is left-handed. His daughter had bruises on the right side of her face which meant a left-handed person had hit her.
9. Jem says that Scout did not understand what was being said.
10. Scout means that the Ewells are on public welfare.
