Chapter 4 Practice Quiz — The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter 4
What does Nick write on the empty spaces of a timetable?
He writes down the names of all the guests who came to Gatsby's house that summer, creating a catalog of Jazz Age socialites, criminals, and celebrities.
Where does Gatsby claim to be from, and why is this suspicious?
Gatsby says his wealthy family was from 'the middle-west,' but when Nick asks which part, he answers 'San Francisco'—which is not in the Midwest at all.
What two pieces of evidence does Gatsby show Nick to support his life story?
A medal from Montenegro inscribed 'For Valour Extraordinary' and a photograph of himself at Oxford's Trinity Quad holding a cricket bat.
What happens when a policeman pulls over Gatsby's car?
Gatsby shows a white card, and the policeman immediately apologizes and lets them go, revealing Gatsby did the police commissioner a favor and receives a Christmas card from him every year.
What does Gatsby reveal about Meyer Wolfsheim after lunch?
Gatsby tells Nick that Wolfsheim is a gambler who fixed the 1919 World Series, connecting Gatsby's world to organized crime.
What happens when Nick introduces Gatsby to Tom Buchanan at the restaurant?
Gatsby becomes visibly embarrassed, and when Nick turns back toward him a moment later, Gatsby has vanished from the restaurant entirely.
What is Gatsby's 'big request' to Nick, as revealed through Jordan?
Gatsby wants Nick to invite Daisy to tea at his cottage so that Gatsby can come over from next door, reuniting them after five years apart.
What are Meyer Wolfsheim's cuff buttons made of?
They are made of human molars, which Wolfsheim proudly identifies as 'finest specimens of human molars.'
Who is Rosy Rosenthal, and why does Wolfsheim mention him?
Rosy Rosenthal was an acquaintance of Wolfsheim's who was shot three times outside the old Metropole Hotel. Wolfsheim recalls the murder nostalgically, revealing his deep ties to the criminal underworld.
How does Jordan Baker describe the young Daisy Fay in Louisville?
Daisy was eighteen, the most popular girl in Louisville, dressed in white, had a white roadster, and was pursued by excited young officers from Camp Taylor who competed for her company.
What did Daisy do the night before her wedding to Tom Buchanan?
She got drunk for the first time, clutched a letter (presumably from Gatsby), tried to return Tom's $350,000 pearl necklace, and cried 'Tell 'em all Daisy's change' her mine!' before being sobered up and going through with the wedding.
What is Klipspringer's role among Gatsby's guests?
He comes to Gatsby's house so often and stays so long that he becomes known as 'the boarder,' suggesting he essentially lives there without being a real friend to Gatsby.
How does Gatsby's fabricated autobiography reflect the theme of self-invention?
Gatsby constructs an entirely false identity—wealthy origins, Oxford education, European adventures—as part of the American Dream of remaking oneself, though his version is built on lies to win back Daisy.
What does the 1919 World Series fix symbolize in the broader context of the novel?
It represents the corruption underlying Jazz Age prosperity, showing that even national institutions and shared cultural faith can be manipulated by a single individual's greed.
How does Gatsby's mansion purchase embody the tension between past and future?
Gatsby buys his mansion to be near Daisy, using wealth and future-oriented ambition in service of recovering a romantic moment from 1917—his dream points forward but is anchored entirely in the past.
What does the guest list reveal about the moral character of Jazz Age society?
The names come attached to stories of drowning, imprisonment, murder, infidelity, and drunkenness, suggesting that the glamorous world surrounding Gatsby's parties is one of widespread moral decay.
What narrative technique does Fitzgerald use when Jordan tells Gatsby and Daisy's backstory?
Embedded narration (a story within a story): Jordan becomes a first-person narrator within Nick's first-person narration, creating a layered perspective that builds dramatic irony.
What literary device is at work in Gatsby's autobiography during the car ride?
Unreliable narration—Gatsby's account is a deliberate fabrication, and Nick signals its falseness through details like the San Francisco gaffe and phrases 'so threadbare' they evoke a 'turbaned character leaking sawdust.'
What is the symbolic significance of crossing the Queensboro Bridge in this chapter?
The bridge serves as a threshold between Long Island's constructed world and Manhattan's raw possibility, where 'anything can happen' and 'even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder.'
How does the guest list function as a literary device?
It works as social satire through accumulation: each name carries a miniature story of scandal or absurdity, and together they form a panoramic portrait of a morally bankrupt society.
What does Nick mean when he describes Wolfsheim lapsing into 'a somnambulatory abstraction'?
Somnambulatory means sleepwalking-like; Nick is saying Wolfsheim fell into a dreamy, detached state of distraction, as if mentally elsewhere.
What does 'punctilious' mean as applied to Gatsby's manner?
Punctilious means showing great attention to detail and correct behavior. Gatsby's restlessness constantly breaks through his carefully maintained formal manner.
What does Nick mean by 'non-olfactory money' in the Queensboro Bridge passage?
He means money that doesn't smell—clean, abstract wealth that built the city's white skyline, contrasting with the dirty reality of how fortunes were actually made.
Who says 'It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people,' and what is the context?
Nick says this after learning Wolfsheim fixed the 1919 World Series, expressing his astonishment that a single person could corrupt something trusted by an entire nation.
What is the significance of the line 'He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to casual moths'?
Nick reflects on the enormous gap between Gatsby's grand preparations—years of waiting, a mansion, hundreds of parties—and his modest request to simply 'come over' to a neighbor's garden to see Daisy.
What does Jordan mean when she says 'Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay'?
She reveals that Gatsby's entire West Egg existence—his mansion, his parties, his proximity to Nick—was deliberately orchestrated to be near Daisy, transforming what seemed like coincidence into calculated devotion.