1984

Chapter Four: Worksheet

Exercise A: (pg 48-54)

1. What is the purpose of the memory holes?

a) They help citizens to remember how good life used to be.
b) They observe the staff to make sure they are not taking breaks.
c) They are for destroying documents.
d) They help to store information that will later be changed.
2. Why does Winston lay the fourth message aside?
a) It does not need to be completed as it is not important.
b) He realizes that Tillotson is supposed to do it.
c) He does not understand the content of the message.
d) It is the most difficult task and as such should be completed last.
3. What happened to the chocolate ration?
a) The amount of chocolate that citizens could eat was increased in April.
b) Nothing changed in terms of the production of chocolate.
c) The original promise not to reduce the ration of chocolate was changed to a warning that it would be
reduced.
d) Chocolate was completely banned across Eurasia and the sale of it made illegal.
4. Why are films and posters subject to the process of alteration?
a) They are used as party political speeches by Big Brother.
b) They might conceivably hold political and ideological significance.
c) Goldstein controls the film industry and has created propaganda using them.
d) All movies in Eurasia are on the subject of politics.
5. What does ‘All history was a palimpsest’ mean?
a) That history is being constantly rewritten.
b) That history has no meaning and is rubbish anyway.
c) That history contains only factual information.
d) That history can never be changed.
6. What is the most likely outcome regarding the production of boots.
a) That the state will produce in excess of 57 million boots.
b) That the state has probably produced no boots at all.
c) That most people will have a new pair of shiny boots.
d) That the state will produce 145 million boots if people protest about it.
7. What word best describes Tillotson?
a) Confident
b) Gregarious
c) Aggressive
d) Secretive
8. What is the tele-programmes section good at?
a) Having actors who can imitate voices.
b) Vaporizing unsuspecting proles.
c) Being experts in typography.
d) Drawing up lists of books to be altered into newspeak.

Exercise B: True or False Questions (pg 55)

1. The proletariat consume exactly the same media as the upper classes. True/False
2. It is not acceptable for Party members to view Pornosec. True/False
3. Winston had completed all of his daily tasks before the Two Minute Hate. True/False
4. Winston was good at his job and actually found it mentally stimulating. True/False
5. Winston had never known a person in his life who had disappeared. True/False
 6. An ‘unperson’ could refer to someone who is no longer living. True/False
7. Comrade Ogilvy was a person who never actually existed. True/False
8. Winston awards Comrade Ogilvy the Order of Conspicuous Merit. True/False

Exercise C: Sequencing the narrative

Order the narrative using the numbers (1-9). Please use numbers only.

a) We learn how Big Brother made an inaccurate prediction about the South Indian Front. ____2____
b) We meet Winston’s colleague Tillotson. ____6____
c) Orwell tells us about history being a palimpsest. ____4____
d) We are told about the case of Comrade Withers.
____8____
e) We learn about what memory holes are. ____1____
f) The definition of an ‘Unperson’ is given to the reader. ____9____
g) Orwell talks about how all statistics in the world of 1984 are nonsense. ____5____
h) We read about what the Records Department does. ____7____
i) The chocolate ration is reduced to 20 grammes. ____3____

Exercise E: Language

devoured by the flames toil significance collated slips

murmuring forgery barefoot scraped clean dozen

Put the words in the right spaces

1. He went to the supermarket and bought a ___dozen____ muffins from the pastry store.
2. While Samantha was giving a speech on the economy she made one or two ____slips_____ with her
pronunciation, but no-one minded.
3. In the wake of recent forest fires in South California, entire forests have been _____devoured by the
flames____.
4. Andrea’s boss has asked that the statistics be ____collated_____ so that the responses with the highest
frequencies are clearly visible.
5. The pudding bowl was ___scraped clean____ by the hungry children. Not a crumb was left.
6. In the Stone Age, while some people would go ____barefoot____, many rudimentary equivalents to modern
day footwear were used.
7. When we entered the concert hall, we could hear a low-level ____murmuring_____ because people were
conversing in hushed voices.
8. Nowadays, banks can use lasers to scan notes so that a ___forgery___ of a bank note can be easily detected.
9. Paul is working very hard at his studies because he does not desire a job where he has to ___toil___ every
day for scant reward.
10. The pandemic of 2020 had a great ____significance____ for the world at largsignificancee because we all
had to change our way of life.