All Quiet on the Western Front

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Chapter 1

Reading Check

1. What is the narrator’s name?

2. Which wounded comrade are the soldiers going to visit in the opening chapter?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Describe the character Kantorek’s relationship to the young soldiers. What is his significance in the early chapters?

2. What article of clothing is discussed at the end of the chapter, and why?

Chapter 2

Reading Check

1. What did Paul aspire to be before he became a soldier?

2. To what corporal were Paul and his friends assigned?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does Paul distinguish between the war’s effect on young men versus older men?

Chapter 3

Reading Check

1. Who does Tjaden tell the others is coming to the front?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does Paul admire about Katczinsky?

2. Why does Tjaden have a “special grudge” against Himmelstoss?

Chapter 4

Reading Check

1. Who is in a good mood for once at the beginning of this chapter?

2. What are described as “gigantic, tapering rulers”?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why is Detering so disturbed by the plight of the wounded horses?

Paired Resource

“Dulce et Decorum Est”

• This poem was written by British soldier and poet Wilfred Owen and published posthumously in 1920 after Owen died in combat.
• This poem connects to the themes of The Devastation of Trench Warfare and The Hypocrisy of War.
• What is the tragedy of “the old lie,” and what does the poem’s speaker implore the audience to consider? What are the parallels between Bäumer’s experiences and those described in the poem?

Chapter 5

Reading Check

1. Who says, “The war has ruined us for everything”?

2. Kat and Paul have a very intimate moment in this chapter. What are they doing that creates this moment of closeness?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is Detering worried about in this chapter, and how does this anxiety manifest in him?

Chapter 6

Reading Check

1. What is stacked up in front of the schoolhouse at the beginning of Chapter 6?

2. What type of tree prompts a melancholy nostalgia in Paul as he is on sentry duty?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Who “collapsed like a rotten tree,” and how does this person differ from Paul and his comrades?

Chapter 7

Reading Check

1. Whom do Paul and his comrades encounter while swimming?

2. How many days does Paul have on leave?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is Paul’s general mood while he is on leave, and why does he feel this way?

Paired Resource

“Soldier’s Home”

• This 8-page short story by Ernest Hemingway explores the experience of Harold Krebs upon his return home from serving in WWI.
• This story connects to the theme of The Devastation of Trench Warfare.
• Krebs finds that he wants to talk about the war, but no one wants to listen. It’s as though everyone has moved on and expects him to do so as well. What is the tension between civilian and soldier? How does Krebs’s experience parallel Paul Bäumer’s?

Chapter 8

Reading Check

1. What prisoners of war are kept at the prison camp alongside the training camp on the moors?

2. What does Paul share with the POWs?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Who comes to visit Paul on his last Sunday before he returns to the front? What impact does this visit have on Paul?

Chapter 9

Reading Check

1. Upon returning to his comrades, where is Paul told, inaccurately, that they are going?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does the following quote refer to: “I do not think at all, I make no decision—I strike madly at home”?

2. How does Paul respond to the wounded soldier?

Paired Resource

“Shell Shocked”

• In this short article from the American Psychological Association, Dr. Edgar Jones describes the trauma of the trenches and the toll it took on soldiers’ mental health, which was called shell shock at the time. The article explains how the British army grew to take this trauma seriously, and how the experiences of soldiers in WWI influenced how the armed services deal with combat trauma today.
• This resource connects to the theme of The Devastation of Trench Warfare.
• Trauma is experienced by many characters throughout All Quiet on the Western Front. While shell shock itself is never mentioned, it is clear that these soldiers’ traumas will impact them in the future. Why was trench warfare so traumatic? Why was broader society resistant to acknowledging the emotional and mental toll that war took on soldiers in WWI? How did soldiers’ experiences in WWI open a new conversation about combat and mental health that continues today?

Chapter 10

Reading Check

1. What are the soldiers doing at the beginning of this chapter that is continuously interrupted by shell fire?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What question does Albert Kropp ask Paul after he (Kropp) is wounded, and how does Paul respond?

2. Who is described as a “beautiful tea-cosy,” and how does this metaphor help support the tone of the passage?

Chapters 11-12

Reading Check

1. Who goes AWOL at the beginning of Chapter 11?

2. What happens to Paul at the end of the book?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is symbolic about Muller giving Paul his boots before he dies?

Paired Resource

“Grass”

• This short poem by Carl Sandburg was published in 1918 and is told from the perspective of the grass that will inevitably, over time, cover and conceal the devastation of war.
• This poem connects to the theme of The Hypocrisy of War.
• This short and haunting poem is a sort of warning to humanity—will we allow ourselves to forget the traumas of the past and fail to prevent them from happening again? How does the tone of this poem mirror the tone of the end of All Quiet on the Western Front, and how do both texts carry similar messages?

Recommended Next Reads

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

• Published in 1929, this novel tells the story of American Frederic Henry, who serves as a lieutenant in the ambulance corps of the Italian army during World War I.
• Shared themes include The Devastation of Trench Warfare and Dehumanization as a Means of Survival.
• Shared topics include the brutal realities of war and the dualities of combat, such as the close proximity of connection and loss, and of life and death.
• A Farewell to Arms on SuperSummary

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

• This novel, published in 1925, explores a post-World War I world. The stream-of-consciousness narration travels back and forth in time, with different characters experiencing different pivotal moments that they return to. For Dalloway, that time is her youth at Bourton; for Septimus Smith, that time is the war.
• Shared themes include The Devastation of Trench Warfare and The Hypocrisy of War.
• Shared topics include the ways in which war and trauma can alter a society and, by extension, a person. Mrs. Dalloway feels a sense of emptiness and meaninglessness, which she tries to fill by throwing parties. Septimus Smith is a WWI veteran for whom the war is still happening. He cannot escape the trauma of his experiences, and he is unable to survive in the postwar world.
• Mrs. Dalloway on SuperSummary