Quiz Ten Steps to Nanette Hannah Gadsby

Ten Steps to Nanette Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of Hannah Gadsby's Memoir

About This Quiz

This 20-question quiz spans the full arc of Hannah Gadsby's Ten Steps to Nanette (2022), from the Louise Bourgeois epigraphs that frame the memoir to the Siffin Soffon prologue and the ten-step structure that leads to the titular show. Questions are grouped into four sections—plot and sequence, character motivation, theme and symbol, and synthesis—and mix multiple-choice and short-answer formats. If you want to review before you start, see the book overview, the questions and answers, or the ending explained.

Plot & Sequence Questions (1–8)

1. What is the title of the book's opening step?

  • A) Step 1: Prologue

  • B) Step 1: Epilogue

  • C) Step 1: Foundation Mythology

  • D) Step 1: Nanette

2. In the Prologue chapter, what happens to Mr. Soffon?

  • A) He is eaten by a dragon

  • B) He is beheaded by snakes

  • C) He drowns at sea

  • D) He is killed by Big Barnshed

3. How does Siffin survive after sharks cut his ship in half?

  • A) A passing boat rescues him

  • B) He kicks the sharks to death and swims to China

  • C) The dragon's magic kettle saves him

  • D) He floats on debris to shore

4. What happens at Hooky Pooky?

  • A) Siffin defeats Big Barnshed in a rematch

  • B) A dragon eats Grandma, Joe, and Andrew, then befriends Siffin

  • C) Siffin is run over by a bus

  • D) The family reunites in a cave

5. What is the title of the book's final step?

  • A) Step 10: Epilogue

  • B) Step 10: Women's Work

  • C) Step 10: Nanette

  • D) Step 10: Gathering Strands

6. (Short answer) What does Gadsby call the roughly seven-year period between her departure from Tasmania and her entry into stand-up comedy?

7. What is the title of Step 9?

  • A) Women's Work

  • B) All Part of the Soup

  • C) Whirl, Interrupted

  • D) The Bell Curve Jar

8. What happens to Siffin after he dreams of being a dog?

  • A) He is captured by snakes

  • B) A monster carries him to a land of similar creatures and relatives

  • C) He boards a ship to China

  • D) He fights Big Barnshed

Character Motivation Questions (9–13)

9. Why does Gadsby caution readers against fact-checking her account of the Wilderness Years?

  • A) She wants to protect other people's privacy

  • B) There is no straight line through trauma

  • C) She cannot remember what happened

  • D) She wants to maintain mystery

10. Why does Gadsby reject rags-to-riches interpretations of her story?

  • A) She did not achieve financial success

  • B) There is no straight line through trauma

  • C) She wants to keep her story private

  • D) She does not believe in hard work

11. Why does Siffin flee after failing to stop the snakes from hanging his mother?

  • A) He is angry at his mother

  • B) He is driven by survival and escape

  • C) He wants to find Big Barnshed

  • D) He is following the dragon

12. Why does Gadsby describe the Wilderness Years as the most precarious period of her life?

  • A) She was physically ill

  • B) She need not have survived; the period was marked by struggles

  • C) She lost all her money

  • D) She was alone in a foreign country

13. (Short answer) Why does Siffin fight the champion Big Barnshed?

Theme & Symbol Questions (14–17)

14. In the Bourgeois epigraph, what does the needle symbolize?

  • A) Aggression and violence

  • B) Repair, forgiveness, and non-aggression

  • C) Wealth and status

  • D) Memory and loss

15. What does the Chapter 1 epigraph say about the purpose of art?

  • A) Art is entertainment

  • B) Art repairs the damages life inflicts

  • C) Art is political protest

  • D) Art is self-expression

16. (Short answer) What theme does the title

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