Quiz: "There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury

Which of the following describes the tone of the house's announcements?

• Pleasant
• Sarcastic/nasty
• Lonely
• Threatening

Why is no one home?

• The house is for sale because the owners moved away.
• Everyone has been killed in a nuclear explosion.
• Everyone is at work or school until 4:00.
• The house is too expensive to operate. It's abandoned.

Which of the following words BEST describes the life the family probably lived?

• Casual
• Timid or scared
• Orderly
• Warlike

What happenes next after the tree bough crashes through the kitchen window?

• A bottle of solvent breaks open; the house catches on fire
• The robot mice come to clean the floor
• The dog whines because it is hungry
• Breakfast is prepared

How does the author arrange the chronological order in this story?

• He describes a clock which announces the time repeatedly.
• He numbers each section of the story
• He discusses how the dog's hunger increases
• He uses a robotic voice that serves as a calendar

What is the story's setting?

• August 4, 2026, after a nuclear blast
• Sometime in the near future
• In the distant future
• May 5, 2012

How does the house seem to come alive?

• The house can do anything a person can do
• The house cries when its inhabitants leave
• The house tries to save its own life
• The house has a full range of human emotions

Which two things are unusual about all of the characters in this story?

• They are all machines/robots
• They are all sad
• They work hard
• They are very patient

How do you know the story is told in the third person point of view?

• The narrator tells about a time in the future.
• The narrator tells about many different events.
• The narrator is not a character in the story.
• The narrator is a character in the story.

Why is the first line of this story ironic?: "In the living room the voice-clock sang, Ticktock, seven o’clock, time to get up, time to getup, seven o’clock" (Bradbury 98).

• The clock says tick tock instead of actually ticking
• It really isn't 7:00
• There is no one in the house to get up or hear the clock
• The story is set in the future, but clocks are still used