The Outsiders ~ study guide
Chapter 1 & 2
1. Who is the narrator?
2. Who are the other members of the narrator’s family? Write a sentence about each.
3. What are the two groups described in the book?
4. How are they different?
5. Where does each group live (what side of town)?
6. What happened to Johnny?
7. What happens to Ponyboy as he walks home from the movies?
8. Name the other members of Ponyboy’s group and write a sentence about each: (there are four
people)
9. What, according to Ponyboy, is the difference between “tuff “and “tough”
10. What kind of student is Ponyboy?
11. How does Ponyboy feel about Darry? Why?
12. What happened at the Nightly Double?
Chapter 3
1. How does Pony explain the separation between the Greasers and the Socs?
2. What happens at home that causes Ponyboy to leave?
3. Johnny said that being the pet of the gang was still not the same as what?
Chapter 4
1. The Socs drove a ______________
__________________ .
2.What did Johnny especially recognize about the Soc named Bob? How did Johnny react and
why?
3. What happened during the confrontation between the five Soc’s and P.B. and Johnny?
4.Who helps P.B. and Johnny?
5. In what way did he help?
6. Describe the place that P.B. and Johnny go.
Chapter 5
1. How did P.B. and Johnny disguise themselves?
2. How did they kill time?
3. What was one thing (there are several possible answers) Johnny learned to appreciate that he
hadn’t been interested in before?
4. Where did the police think P.B. and Johnny were?
5. Who was the Greasers spy?
Chapter 6
1. Why do you think that Johnny decided that they should turn themselves in?
2. What did Pony Boy discover about Dally when they were riding back to the church in the TBird?
3. What happened to the church?
4. When was the only time P.B. didn’t see a “defeated, suspicious look” in Johnny’s eyes?
5. How does P.B. feel about Darry at the end of the chapter? Why?
Chapter 7
1. What condition was Johnny in?
2. What did P.B. see in the newspaper the worried him? Why was he worried?
3. Why was Sodapop miserable when he and Darry left the house?
4. What did Ponyboy learn about Randy and the other Socs?
Chapter 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
1. What did Johnny ask P.B. and Two-Bit to get for him?
2. Why didn’t Johnny want to see his mother?
3. Why did Pony like Dally better now?
4. What did Two-Bit give to Dally? Why did Dally want it?
5. Cherry Valance is at the vacant lot when Pony and Two-Bit come by because she wants to tell
them what?
6. Explain in your own words what you think Pony meant when he said, “You can see the sun set
real good for the east side, too.”
7. What kind of rumble had been agreed upon between the Greasers and the Socs?
8. Why did Pony, Soda, and Darry get “spruced up” before the rumble?
9. What was the difference between Tim Shepard’s gang and the one Ponyboy was in?
10. Explain what “He’s a pretty good bopper” means. Who was this said it about?
11. Who won the rumble?
12. How did Dally get a police escort to the hospital after the rumble?
13. What were Johnny’s last words? What do you think he meant?
14. Who do you think took Johnny’s death the hardest?
15. Explain what happened to Dally after Johnny died.
16. Why didn’t Pony remember anything about the following three days?
17. What problems did Ponyboy have when he went back to school?
18. What two worries caused Soda to leave the house? How was one of them resolved?
19. What topic did Ponyboy decided to write about for his English paper?