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60 free The Outsiders trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
55 free The Outsiders trivia questions with answers. S. E. Hinton started The Outsiders at 15 and finished it at 16, and nearly sixty years later it is still one of the most-read novels in American schools. This quiz covers the whole story of the story: the greasers and Socs of an unnamed Tulsa, Ponyboy and Johnny on the run, the church fire, the rumble, and the letter tucked inside a copy of Gone with the Wind. It then moves on to the 1983 Francis Ford Coppola film that launched half of Hollywood's Brat Pack, the Broadway musical that won Best Musical in 2024, and the real house in Tulsa that fans turned into a museum. It works for a book-club night, an English class review, or anyone who read it in seventh grade and still thinks about that sunrise. Difficulty ranges from plot basics to genuinely hard questions about publishing history, casting near-misses and the Frost poem at the heart of it. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the novel, the film, the musical, the poem and Hinton herself. If we could not cite it, it is not in the quiz.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what year was The Outsiders first published?
1967
It arrived at the height of the 1960s and has never gone out of print. Hinton was still a teenager when it came out.
Q 02Which publisher released the novel?
Viking Press
The same publisher later reported that the book still sells more than half a million copies a year.
Q 03In which city is the novel set, though it is never named in the text?
Tulsa
Hinton grew up there and based the greasers and Socs on gangs at her own high school.
Q 04What is 'Socs' short for?
Socials
It is pronounced 'SOH-shiz'. The greasers use it for the wealthy west-side kids who jump them.
Q 05How old was S. E. Hinton when she started writing the novel?
15
She wrote most of it the following year as a high school junior, and it was published when she was 18.
Q 06Why did S. E. Hinton publish under her initials rather than her full name?
So male reviewers would not dismiss a female author
Susan Eloise Hinton kept the initials for the rest of her career, partly to keep her private and public lives separate.
Q 07Roughly how many copies has the novel sold?
More than 14 million
As of 2017 it was still selling over 500,000 copies a year, largely thanks to school reading lists.
Q 08How old is narrator Ponyboy Curtis at the start of the story?
14
He is the youngest of the three Curtis brothers, gets good grades and runs track.
Q 09What is the first name of the oldest Curtis brother, who raises the other two?
Darrel
Everyone calls him Darry. He is 20, athletic and strong, and the gang's unofficial leader.
Q 10How did the Curtis brothers' parents die?
In a car crash
Their deaths eight months earlier leave the oldest brother working two jobs to keep the family together.
Q 11Where does the middle Curtis brother, a high-school dropout, work?
A gas station
He is described as the handsome, funny one of the family, and Ponyboy adores him.
Q 12Which greaser is a wise-cracking kleptomaniac known for carrying a switchblade?
Two-Bit Mathews
His real first name is Keith. In the film he pulls the blade when the Socs confront the group after the drive-in.
Q 13For how many years did Dally live on the streets of New York City?
3
That hardened past makes him the roughest and most volatile of the greasers, though he cares deeply about Johnny.
Q 21Which poet wrote 'Nothing Gold Can Stay', the poem Ponyboy recites at sunrise?
Robert Frost
It gives the story its most famous line, 'Stay gold, Ponyboy.'
Q 22What does Ponyboy do to his hair while hiding out?
Cuts and bleaches it
For a greaser, losing his hair is a real sacrifice; it is his identity as much as his disguise.
Q 23What injury does Johnny suffer during the church fire?
A broken back
A piece of the roof falls on him while he is rescuing trapped children.
Q 14What does Dally carry with him at all times?
An unloaded gun
That habit is fatal at the end of the story, when he points it at police after Johnny's death.
Q 15Who is Sodapop's best friend since grade school?
Steve Randle
In the 1983 film the part went to a young Tom Cruise.
Q 16Where do Ponyboy and Johnny meet the two Soc girls?
At a drive-in movie
Ponyboy connects with one of them, and it is the first time he has really talked with a Soc.
Q 17Where do the Socs try to drown Ponyboy?
In a park fountain
That attack ends with Johnny stabbing Bob, which sends the two boys on the run.
Q 18Which Soc does Johnny stab and kill?
Bob Sheldon
He was Cherry's boyfriend and considered the leader of the Socs. He had badly beaten Johnny months earlier.
Q 19In which town do the boys hide out in an abandoned church?
Windrixville
They get there by hopping a freight train, on Dally's instructions.
Q 20Which novel does Ponyboy read aloud to Johnny while they hide?
Gone with the Wind
Johnny later gives Ponyboy his own copy, and a farewell letter is tucked inside it.
Q 24What does the judge decide about Ponyboy after the hearing?
He is acquitted and stays with Darry
The ruling that Bob's death was self-defense keeps the Curtis family together.
Q 25What is the name of Ponyboy's English teacher, who assigns the theme that becomes the novel?
Mr. Syme
He says he will pass Ponyboy if he writes a decent theme, which Ponyboy begins with the book's own opening line.
Q 26Which movie star is on Ponyboy's mind in the novel's opening line?
Paul Newman
'I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.' The book ends by circling back to that sentence.
Q 27Where did the novel rank on the ALA's list of most challenged books of 1990-1999?
38th
Objections cite gang violence, underage smoking and drinking, and slang, yet it is a middle-school staple.
Q 28Which later Hinton novel features Ponyboy Curtis in a supporting role?
That Was Then, This Is Now
Published in 1971, it follows two close friends whose bond is tested by drug dealing.
Q 29Which 2006 video game based its Greasers and Preppies on The Outsiders?
Bully
Rockstar Games' school-set title borrowed the class rivalry wholesale.
Q 30In what year did the Outsiders House Museum open in Tulsa?
2019
The building had served as the Curtis brothers' home in the film; a musician bought it sight unseen and restored it.