Cold Mountain

c Pearson Education Limited 2008

Cold Mountain - Answer keys

of 5

Answer keys

LEVEL 5

PENGUIN READERS

Teacher Support Programme

Book key

1 Possible answer: The economies of the “cotton states”

of the south of the United States depended on the
work of thousands of black slaves. The northern states
were against slavery and tried to stop it in the whole
of the country. In 1860, Abraham Lincoln, a strong
voice against slavery, was elected President. Many of
the southern states then broke with the union and war
began in 1861 between the North and the South. The
war ended in 1865 with victory for the North.

2 a Open answers

b 1 food: cornmeal, hardtack

2 natural world: cove, gorge, thistle

3 transport: carriage, cart

4 (parts of ) buildings: barn, cabin, porch

3 a hospital

b hat

c die

d new clothes

e an Indian

f food

g not practical

h cooking

i sick

j strong

4 Possible answers:

a Inman has spent almost four years in the army of

the southern states. He has fought bravely in many
battles. He is a good soldier and fighter. He has
been badly wounded in the neck. He is sick of the
killing and ashamed of shooting many men like
himself. He feels he is becoming a killing machine,
an animal. He wants to get away from it all and
find peace. He is not afraid of fighting or dying;
he is afraid of losing his human soul.

b Ada was born and brought up in Charleston, a

big city in South Carolina. She was taught art and
music, foreign languages and everything a city lady
needed to be a fine wife. Unfortunately, her father
brings her to Black Cove, a farm near a country
town in North Carolina, and she does not fit in
with the people there. Now her father is dead, and
she cannot farm or cook. She has no practical skills
at all. She feels that she can’t go back to the city
because she would be poor and helpless. She does
not want to marry only for money.

c Ada is afraid of the rooster. It attacked and

scratched her. Ruby sees the rooster as trouble and
food. Ada can’t go near it, but Ruby picks it up,
kills it, and cooks it. This shows that Ada is too
sensitive, and Ruby is very practical.

5 Open answers
6 a F b T c T d F e T f F g F h T

i F j T k F l F

7 a Inman has to avoid people. When he passes farms,

the dogs attack him. The Home Guard is always
looking for deserters on the roads. In one of the
villages, two men attack him and try to rob him.

b Inman is angry with the preacher. He has slept with

a poor village girl, and now he is trying to kill her.
Inman wants to save the girl, but not to hurt the
preacher. He takes the preacher back into the town
and ties him to a tree. Then he writes a note about
what the man has done. The people of the village
will punish the cruel preacher, and he will not be
able to kill the girl.

c They start a vegetable garden and get more

chickens. They exchange the piano for a pig, six
sheep and a lot of food. They also exchange a sack
of good coffee beans for some chickens and more
food.

d Ruby never knew her mother, and her father was

a lazy drunk. He didn’t look after Ruby or their
house. He often went away for days and left her
alone. She had a very hard life. Then her father
joined the army and she was completely alone. She
worked on their farm until she went to help Ada.
She learned a lot from other women, who helped
her when she was a child.

8 a Inman is talking with Ada.

b They are outside the church, after the Sunday

service.

c The young men of the area are interested in Ada

because she is young, beautiful, and unmarried.

d A thistle is a plant with sharp points on its leaves.

It can hurt your hand if you pick it. Ada is not
friendly with the country people. She gives short,
quite rude answers when they speak to her. She is
difficult to talk to.

9 Open answers
10 a 3 b 6 c 1 d 5 e 2 f 11 g 9 h 12

i 4 j 7 k 8 l 10

Cold Mountain

c Pearson Education Limited 2008

Cold Mountain - Answer keys

2 of 5

Answer keys

LEVEL 5

PENGUIN READERS

Teacher Support Programme

11 a The Home Guard is organized to protect the local

people, since most of the men are at war. They also
look for deserters to send them back to the army.
But many of the Home Guard are now thieves
and murderers. They have guns and a lot of power.
Inman is caught and sold to them. He and other
prisoners are treated very badly. Then they are shot.
The Home Guard is very dangerous people, not
only to deserters, but also to the local people.

b Junior and his sisters find deserters, take them to

their house, give them food and get them drunk,
then sell them to the Home Guard.

c A bullet goes through part of Inman’s head, but it

has already killed Veasey and is traveling slowly. He
is buried with the dead prisoners, but the grave is
quite shallow. Next morning, wild pigs dig up the
bodies. Inman wakes up and begins walking again.

12 Possible answers: Although Inman is alive and free, he

has had a very bad experience. He has been very close
to death. Junior and his sisters were terrible people,
and the Home Guard killed their prisoners. Inman
has been back to Junior’s house and killed him. He
feels that there is no goodness in the world—only evil
and cruel people. He hears men all around him in the
woods and he is afraid. He feels a long way from home
and Ada.

13 Open answers
14 a Tennessee

b natural

c prisoner

d Teague

e caravan

f goat

g baby

h clothes

i kills/shoots

15 Possible answers:

a The prisoner is a deserter. He has been a good

soldier and fought many battles. Teague and his
Home Guard killed the prisoner’s father and the
other outliers and stole food from the house.
Now they will kill the prisoner. The two women
are “wordless with shock.” No one is safe from the
Home Guard. Inman could be caught and shot by
them. Ada can hardly believe the truth of the man’s
story, but Ruby, who is more practical and knows
more about life, believes that men could easily
behave like this.

b After his bad experiences with Junior and the

Home Guard, Inman is lucky to meet the old
goatwoman and the young woman called Sara.
The goatwoman lives in a caravan in the forest. She
gives Inman good food, safe shelter, and medicines
for his injuries. She has lived alone in the forest for
twenty-six years and knows a lot about nature and
plants. She can see that Inman is not evil, but needs
rest and quiet. She lets Inman stay with her for a
few days of peace.

The young woman, Sara, lives alone with a small

baby. Her husband was killed in the war. She has
very little food, but shares it with Inman. She lets
him sleep in her house and rest. She gives him her
husband’s clothes. She wants to help him because
he reminds her of her husband.

c These Federals are cruel and heartless thieves and

killers. They threaten Sara’s baby and steal her food
so that she will die of hunger. Inman feels that it
is right to kill them to save Sara’s life. Also, they
are enemy soldiers from the north. He has already
killed a lot of them in the war.

16 a Stobrod is Ruby’s father. He treated her very badly

as a child and then went away, leaving her alone.

b Open answers

17 a Inman

b Kanuga

c Stobrod

d Pangle

e Georgia

f Teague

g Pangle

h Stobrod

i Cherokee

18 a Ruby is talking to her father, Stobrod, when he

first comes the farm. He says that he is living in a
cave with other outliers. He says they hunt, eat, get
drunk, and make music. Ruby thinks that is how he
has always lived. She doesn’t like him, and doesn’t
want him to come to the farm.

b This is a line from a song that Stobrod sings to Ada

and Ruby and it makes Ada think about Inman.
She decides to write to Inman and simply writes
this line and her name. It is her decision to tell
Inman that he is in her heart, and she hopes he will
come back to her.

Cold Mountain

c Pearson Education Limited 2008

Cold Mountain - Answer keys

of 5

Answer keys

LEVEL 5

PENGUIN READERS

Teacher Support Programme

c When Teague and his men find Stobrod and

Pangle, they ask them about the cave where a
group of outliers are living. Stobrod says he knows
nothing about the cave, but Pangle is a foolish man
who doesn’t see any danger. He tells Teague where
the cave is and then Teague’s men shoot them both.

d When Stobrod and Pangle stand in front of the tree

and the Home Guards are going to shoot them,
Pangle is still smiling, not realizing their danger.
Teague tells Pangle to hold his hat in front of his
face so that the Guards cannot see him smiling.
Then they shoot them.

e The Georgia boy sees all of this from the bushes

where he is hiding. He goes back to Ada and Ruby
and tells them what happened. The women decide
to go up into the mountains and bury the dead
men.

19–20 Open answers
21 a No b Yes c No d No e No f Yes
22 a Ada is talking to Inman. When she first sees

Inman on the path in the woods, she thinks he is
a stranger, a madman. She doesn’t recognize him.

b Ada is talking to Ruby. Ruby is jealous of the

attention that Ada is giving to Inman. Ruby doesn’t
like men and believes that she and Ada can manage
the farm without Inman’s help. Ada agrees that she
doesn’t need Inman, but she thinks she wants him.
Ruby accepts this.

c Ada is talking to Inman. Inman is still depressed

and worried. He feels that the horrors of war and
his journey have ruined him. He loves Ada, but he
can’t ask her to marry him. Ada now knows that
there is a cure for almost everything in nature and
tells him that he, too, can be cured.

d Ada is talking to Inman. When they are preparing

to sleep together for the first time, Ada sees Inman
watching her while she is taking off her clothes. She
is shy and tells him to turn around.

23–24 Open answers
25 a F b T c F d T e T f T g F h T
26–36 Open answers

Discussion activities key

1 To start the activity you could use the table below and

ask students to fill in the blanks:

American Civil War (1861–………)

…………

South

Union

Confederacy

against slavery

………… slavery

wins the war

………… the war

2 Examples of other books or movies which use the

subjects of love and war are:

GonewiththeWind,SnowFallingonCedars,
TheEnglishPatient,PearlHarbor,CaptainCorelli’s
Mandolin,Braveheart

3 Possible answers:

The author describes war as a world where men
behave strangely and death is no longer significant.
He refers to men at war as lumps of meat, with no
soul and no spirit. Men’s spirits become broken in war.

4–6 Open answers
7 Suggested answers:

Ada’s neighbor, Sally Swanger, sent Ruby because she
knows that Ada is probably unable to cope with the
house and farm by herself. This suggests that there is
a good network of kind neighbors even in this remote
mountain area.

8–11 Open answers
12 Suggested answers:

Ruby exchanged Ada’s piano for a fine pig, half a
dozen sheep, and large quantities of cornmeal, green
vegetables, and smoked meat. First, they made and
drank some real coffee, and then Ruby exchanged the
coffee beans for sacks of salt, corn, potatoes and beans,
and eight chickens. Chickens are for eggs and meat;
pig and sheep are also meat. Ruby can make cloth out
of sheep.

13–14 Open answers
15 Possible answers:

a He had no hair, and wore a long gray coat and

carried a knapsack. He had been badly beaten.

b People in his town found him where Inman left

him and read the note. He was beaten. People
shaved his head. They told him to get out of town
or they would hang him.

Cold Mountain

c Pearson Education Limited 2008

Cold Mountain - Answer keys

of 5

Answer keys

LEVEL 5

PENGUIN READERS

Teacher Support Programme

c Perhaps Junior left a saw to attract deserters. It

doesn’t say clearly, but this may be Junior’s trap.

d The Home Guard is supposed to bring the deserter

back to the battle field. These things happened a
lot, but it’s not right to shoot them.

e Inman survives because the bullet had already gone

through Veasey’s body. Also the Home Guard dug
a shallow hole to bury the bodies, so that Inman
could breathe. Later wild pigs came and started
digging up the earth.

16–17 Open answers
18 The crowd is frightened and worried by the prisoner’s

story. They feel sorry for him, and they are shocked
by the actions of Teague and his men. Many people in
the town probably feel as scared of the Home Guard
as they do of the Feds.

19–20 Open answers
21 Suggested answers:

Similarities: They both live difficult and remote lives
in the mountains. They are both kind and unselfish.
They want to help Inman. They are lonely.

Differences: The goatwoman is old, but she looks
young; Sara is young, but she already sounds old and
sad. The goatwoman can kill her farm animals easily.
The goatwoman had a cruel husband but Sara loved
and misses hers.

The author introduces them close together to show
that there are many different types of people who have
to live very difficult lives, often as a result of war.

22 Possible answers:

Perhaps Sara and her baby won’t survive the winter. I
hope she finds the way to survive somehow. If I were
Sara, I would ask for help in the neighborhood. I
would ask around if there’s any job I can do although
the baby has to stay with me.

23–26 Open answers
27 Suggested answers:

She hits the horse with a big stick. This tells us that
Ada is now able to find practical solutions to problems
without Ruby’s help.

28–35 Open answers
36 Some examples of their guesses:

Inman says the last goodbye to Ada. (or vice versa)

Ruby says the last goodbye to Stobrod.

Ruby says the last goodbye to Ada.

37–40 Open answers

Activity worksheets key

1 a He hates them for their stupid desire to die.

b He is worried that a doctor might send him back to

fight because his wound is healing well.

c He doesn’t want to fight again.

d He worries about Swimmer’s safety.

e He thinks it is a good place to heal his spirit.

2 a She’s writing to Inman.

b They have become dirty, disorganized and wild.

c Because her father had kept her away from hard

work.

d About six years ago.

e She is very sad and lonely.

3 a slowly

b nervous

c risky

d harmless

e confident

f impatiently

4 a 4 b 1 c 2 d 3 e 7 f 6 g 4 h 5
5 a 4 b 3 c 1 d 5 e 2 f 6 g 9 h 7 i 8
6 a T b F c F d F e F
7 a Who: the goatwoman, To whom: Inman, What: her

husband

b Who: the goatwoman, To whom: Inman, What:

thick liquid medicine she gives him

c Who: Sara, To whom: Inman, What: her dead

husband and her life as a single mother

d Who: Sara, To whom: the Federals, What: her pig

e Who: Inman, To whom: the dead Federal soldiers,

What: killing them

8 a He wants her to throw it away because he no longer

looks the same.

b He thinks that the message of the story, at least, is

true.

c He doesn’t want to leave her and he wishes she felt

as heart-broken as he does.

d At first she can’t say exactly how she feels, but at the

end of the chapter she admits that she misses Inman
and she just wants him to come home.

e She thinks she isn’t easily able to show her feelings,

but that she should learn to show them before she
gets too old.

Cold Mountain

c Pearson Education Limited 2008

Cold Mountain - Answer keys

5 of 5

Answer keys

LEVEL 5

PENGUIN READERS

Teacher Support Programme

9 a Because they cooked and ate rabbits that they had

found already dead.

b Ruby. Because she thought it was too dangerous.

c Ruby leaves it for them in a secret place.

d So that his man can shoot Pangle more easily.

e No, he only heard the gun shots.

10 Suggested answers:

a Ada isn’t at home when he arrives.

b he wants to find Ada, and she has gone to the

mountains.

c sad and confused.

d thinks she is a hunter.

e he is thin and he look like a madman.

11 a 6 b 2 c 5 d 3 e 4 f 1
12 a porch

b Home Guard

c cart

d Veasey

e tune

13 a T b F c T d F e T

Progress test key

1 a 8 b 1 c 7 d 5 e 6 f 10 g 3 h 4
i 9 j 2
2 a 7 b 8 c 1 d 4 e 2 f 3 g 5 h 6
3 a 1 b 2 c 3 d 2 e 2 f 3
4 a pistol
b preached
c lap
d longed
e deserter
f healed
g setting off
h fast
i angle
j stroked