American Literature 1 — Cheat Sheet

★ THE FIXED POOL — fifteen questions that appeared, word for word, in BOTH photographed papers

Q	The question	The key
17	What does “Mark Twain” mean?	Two fathoms deep
18	Who demands Huck's money?	Pap Finn
21	“Dah you goes, de ole true Huck…” — speaking to	Jim / Huck
22	Jim is all of the following EXCEPT	foolish
26	The Duke and the Dauphin are primarily	con men
27	What are the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons fighting about?	Nobody really remembers
28	Huck is a … character	White trash
29	Humanity has nothing to do with	race
30	… focuses on characters, their dialects and values	Regionalism
31	“I couldn't get that out of my …”	conscience
32	“I warn't man enough” refers to Huck's decision to	tell on Jim
33	Choose the correct answer	Huck runs away to Jackson's Island where he meets Jim
34	“enough to make a body … of the human race”	ashamed
35	“everybody naturally despises a(n) … nigger”	ungrateful
38	“I was playing double…” — “sin” refers to	helping Jim

Plus four near-variants asked BOTH ways across the two papers: “Human beings can be awful cruel” (missing word / who says it) • “A person's conscience ain't got no sense” (missing word / said by Huck) • “I knowed he was white inside” (missing word / “he” = Jim) • the Judge Thatcher money item (who safeguards it / why Huck gives it to him).

★★★ THE 2025/2026 PAPER PROVES THE METHOD — she keeps the sentence and moves the blank

The newest paper repeats seven sentences you have already met and blanks a different word in each one. Memorising a gap is worthless; memorise the whole clause. Every row below is one sentence that has now been examined twice or three times, in two places.

The sentence	Blanked on Papers A/B	Blanked on Paper C (2025/26)
“everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger”	ungrateful	naturally
“he was most free — who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn't get that out of my conscience”	conscience	“it” = freedom — and conscience is offered as a decoy
“I was playing double… letting on to give up sin”	“sin” = helping Jim	double
“Regionalism focuses on characters, their dialects and values”	Regionalism	dialects
“Huck prefers freedom over civilization”	civilization	freedom
“It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race”	ashamed	who says it & when = Huck, on the Duke and King
“The law backs that old Judge Thatcher up… out o' my property”	who says it = Pap	property

Two more conversions on the same paper. “Humanity has nothing to do with race” became a True/False with the word swapped to gender — keyed False. And “Huck is a white trash character” became “Pap Finn is a white trash character” — same option block, same key. Her False items are made by swapping exactly one word in a sentence you have memorised. If a True/False statement sounds familiar but one word feels wrong, it is False, and that word is why.

⚠ Printed keys that are wrong or disputed

Where	The question	Printed	The defensible answer
Paper A Q1	The river best serves as a symbol of…	a. slavery	b. freedom — Lecture 2: “It is a symbol of freedom”; Lecture 7: “the ultimate symbol of freedom.”
Paper B Q20	“You can't pray a lie” — what does Huck realize?	a. Prayer is useless	b. He can't pretend — the passage says he was “playing double.” But answer as printed if the identical item returns.
Paper A Q33	Choose the correct answer	grid reads a	d — the other paper's grid reads d, and d is the only true statement.
Paper B Q24	“Human beings can be awful cruel…” who says it and in what context	b (accepted)	Correct, though loosely worded: Huck is reflecting on the crowd's cruelty to the con men, not on their scams.
Paper C Q20	“I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their'n” — what does this reveal?	a. He thinks black people don't have feelings	The line says the opposite. Look at the options: they are the option block from the other paper's “light out for the Territory” question, where the key was All of the above. She pasted an old option list under a new stem and the key came with it. Answer (a) as printed — but if the stem is the Territory line, the answer is “All of the above.”

Every number in the novel

$6,000	Huck's fortune (also the Wilks inheritance)
$800	Jim's price at New Orleans
$300	reward for Jim
$200	reward for Pap
$40	the duke's price for Jim — and Tom's payment to Jim
$8	found in the coat lining in the floating house
43	chapters
13	Huck's age (Jim is in his forties)
2 fathoms = 12 feet	what “Mark Twain” means
15 minutes	how long before Huck could humble himself to Jim
30 years	how long the feud has run
2 months	how long Jim has been free without knowing

Every date

1835–1910	Mark Twain's life (Halley's Comet both years)
1839	the Clemens family moves to Hannibal
1840	the setting of the novel — before the Civil War
1861–1865	the American Civil War
1865	slavery banned; Reconstruction begins
1876	the Jim Crow segregation laws

Do not swap 1865 and 1876. One ends slavery; the other brings segregation.

Who is who — the relationship map

Widow Douglas	Huck's legal guardian — not mother, not aunt
Miss Watson	the Widow's sister, and Jim's owner; frees him in her will
Judge Thatcher	safeguards the money; father of Becky
the new judge	the one who tries and fails to reform Pap
Pap Finn	Huck's father; motives = greed, jealousy, alcoholism
Tom Sawyer	Huck's friend and foil; middle class; Romanticism
Aunt Polly	Tom's aunt; Aunt Sally's sister; identifies Huck
Silas & Sally Phelps	Tom's uncle and aunt; hold Jim; the only intact family
Buck Grangerford	the boy Huck's age killed in the feud
Buck Harkness	the “half-a-man” who leads the mob at Sherburn
Colonel Sherburn	shoots Boggs; “The average man's a coward”
Boggs	the drunk who insults Sherburn and is shot
Mary Jane Wilks	eldest Wilks daughter; hands over the $6,000
Elizabeth & Johnny	Jim's deaf daughter and his son
Sophia & Harney	the elopement that sets off the final gunfight

Huck's three aliases

Sarah Williams — dressed as a girl, in town (Ch. 11)
George Jackson — with the Grangerfords (Ch. 18)
Tom Sawyer — at the Phelps farm (Ch. 32)

The papers only ever list two of them, which is why the key becomes “both a & b.” Thomas Smith is the invented distractor. And at the Phelps farm, Tom pretends to be Sid.

The literary terms — free marks

Regionalism	focuses on characters, their dialects and values
Realism	real life, average people; characters matter more than plot
Romanticism	Tom's adventure books; style over morality
Local colour	close physical detail of a place
Pseudonym	a pen name
Abolitionist	a person who sought to stop slavery
Mulatto	one black parent, one white parent
White trash	poorer than the working class
Feud	inherited family killing; cause forgotten
Satire	criticizing social norms like racism and slavery
Picaresque	a rogue hero exposing his society's hypocrisy
Bildungsroman	a novel of education, innocence → knowledge
Dramatic irony	the reader knows more than the narrator
Foil	a character who shows another by contrast (Tom ↔ Huck)

Every quotation the papers have used — learn the exact missing word

The line	Missing word / answer	Speaker
“he was most free — and who was to blame for it? Why, me. I couldn't get that out of my ____”	conscience	Huck
“It was enough to make a body ____ of the human race.”	ashamed	Huck (Wilks funeral)
“everybody naturally despises a(n) ____ nigger”	ungrateful	Huck (Ch. 31)
“I knowed he was ____ inside”	white — and “he” = Jim	Huck
“It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and ____ myself to a n—”	humble	Huck (after the fog)
“You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a ____”	raft	Huck
“Jim said it made him all over trembly and feverish to be so close to ____”	freedom	Huck, of Jim
“Human beings can be awful ____ to one another.”	cruel	Huck (con men tarred)
“A person's ____ ain't got no sense and just goes for him anyway”	conscience (NOT “conscious”)	Huck
“I warn't man enough”	to tell on Jim	Huck
“I was playing double… the biggest sin of all”	helping Jim	Huck
“All right, then, I'll go to hell”	rejecting society's morality to help Jim	Huck
“I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things”	said by Huck	Huck
“Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on'y white genlman dat ever kep' his promise”	Jim → Huck	Jim
“The law backs that old Judge Thatcher up… my property”	said by Pap Finn	Pap
“Southern fashion”	lynching	Colonel Sherburn
“I reckon I got to light out for the Territory…”	the West; reveals all of the above	Huck (last line)

How to identify the speaker in one second

Broken spelling — doan', gwyne, de, dat, warn't, sah, wuz, bekase → JIM, every time.
Angry slang about the government, the law, or “my property” → PAP.
Plain narration with “I reckon”, “I judged”, “warn't” → HUCK.
Rules, books, style, “the authorities” → TOM.
A cold, contemptuous speech about cowardice → COLONEL SHERBURN.

Land vs river — the master contrast

ON THE LAND	ON THE RAFT / RIVER
slavery, violence, cruelty, hypocrisy, civilization, lust for money	freedom, innocence, happiness, peace, loyalty, faithfulness

Nuance for interpretation questions only: Lecture 7 adds that the river later becomes “merely a short-term means of escape” carrying them deeper south. Use that in an essay-style item — but on a one-word MCQ, the river means freedom.

Huck ↔ Tom — the axis behind every comparison

HUCK	TOM
White trash, no money, no home	Middle class, raised in comfort
Realism — learns from experience	Romanticism — learns from books
Questions authority	Sticks strictly to “rules”
Frees Jim at the cost of his soul	Frees the free, for the adventure
Develops morally (bildungsroman)	Does not change

The six themes (from the doctor's file)

Racism and slavery — the abstract antagonist of the whole novel
Intellectual and moral education — the bildungsroman
The hypocrisy of “civilized” society — keyed as “most central” on Paper B
Guilt / shame — broken in Ch. 31 when he cannot pray
Empathy — first for the murderers on the wreck, then for Jim
Money / wealth — “does nothing but cause problems”

Motifs: childhood • lies and cons • superstition • parody of romance novels.
Symbols: the Mississippi • the raft • Jim himself.

The traps she plants, in one list

Mulatto offered when Huck's class is asked — belongs to the man from Ohio.
Conscious offered when conscience is wanted — a spelling trap.
Actors offered for the con men — read the word “primarily.”
Steal the coffin offered for the Wilks crime — Huck hides gold in the coffin.
A man offered for “Phelps is the name of a ___” — the lecture calls it a plantation.
Nickname offered for pseudonym.
Aunt / mother offered for Widow Douglas — she is his legal guardian.
Aunt Polly offered for who announces Jim's freedom — it is Tom.
Harney's death offered for the final gunfight — it is Sophia's elopement, and Harney survives.
Degrade offered for humble myself.

The last ten minutes before you go in

The exam is 40 items, 100 marks, a/b/c/d. Never leave a blank.
Q1–16 = plot and motive. Q17–40 = quotations, terms, and the fixed pool. If you are short of time, secure the back half first — it repeats.
On a fill-in-the-blank, say the whole sentence in your head before looking at the options.
On “who says this”, check the dialect first.
On “all EXCEPT” about Jim, choose the insult.
If three options are all defensible, look for “All of the above”.
When the handout and your own reading of the novel disagree, answer the handout. That is the rule that decides the hardest item on either paper — the “generosity of white people” statement, keyed TRUE.