Uglies

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

Part 1, Chapters 1-7

1. Why has Tally not seen Peris recently?

2. Whom does Tally find waiting by the river?

3. What does Shay teach Tally?

4. Where do Shay and Tally travel starting in Chapter 7?

Short-Answer

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

1. What is Shay’s biggest complaint about the pretty surgery?

Paired Resource

“The Automation Paradox”

• This video describes the history of automation in transportation, as well as the Automation Paradox—the idea that the more automation occurs, the more humans rely on automation and thus must develop it more.
• What kind of technologies have grown important in our lives? How does Tally’s futuristic world showcase technologies like automation? Does automation have any downsides when it comes to human development?

Part 1, Chapters 8-13

1. Whom does Shay want Tally to meet at the Rusty Ruins?

2. Where does Shay go a week before her surgery?

3. Who does Tally meet the day of her surgery?

Short-Answer

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

1. What do Tally and Shay argue about after they pull their prank on the new uglies?

2. Why does Tally stand up to Dr. Cable?

Parts 1 and 2, Chapters 14-23

Reading Check

1. Who comes to visit Tally when she returns to Uglyville?

2. What is Tally given to alert the Specials to the Smoke’s location?

3. What does the field at the end of Tally’s journey consist of?

4. Who meets Tally at the “bald head”?

Short-Answer

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

1. What is at least one lesson that Tally learns while traveling?

2. Why does Tally ultimately decide to help Special Circumstances instead of keeping Shay’s secret?

Paired Resource

“The Road Not Taken”

• One of Robert Frost’s most famous poems, “The Road Not Taken” describes the narrator choosing between two roads to take during a journey.
• Connects to the theme of Individuality Versus Community
• How is Tally like or unlike the narrator of the poem? What choices does she face, and what influences her decisions?

Part 2, Chapters 24-32

Reading Check

1. What does Shay show Tally at the library?

2. What “job” do the teenaged runaways have?

3. Who is the first person to suspect that Tally is not what she seems?

4. What are David’s parents’ names? What was their occupation before they left the cities?

Short-Answer

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

1. Why does David seem to like Tally?

2. What secret does Tally learn about the pretty surgery?

3. What does Tally decide to do about her deal with Special Circumstances and Dr. Cable?

Paired Resource

 “Brain Lesions”

• The Cleveland Clinic outlines what brain lesions are, how they develop, and what their symptoms might be.
• Connects to the theme of The Power of Knowledge
• Do any of the symptoms this article describes feature in Uglies? Based on this article, how might creating brain lesions help the cities control their populations or prevent critical ideas from taking root?

Part 3, Chapters 33-42

Reading Check

1. What does Tally claim happened to the locket?

2. Where does Tally go when she escapes?

3. Whom does Tally find after she escapes?

4. Why did the Rusty civilization die, according to David?

Short-Answer

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

1. What is the difference between how David views Tally versus how Tally views herself?

2. Why are Sussy, An, and Dex so important?

Paired Resource

“Science Explains Why Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder”

• CBS News article discussing scientific research on the role experience plays in shaping perceptions of attractiveness
• Connects to the theme of Beauty Isn’t Everything
• How have Tally’s opinions on the appearance of both the Specials and the Smokies changed since she left the city? What factors might have caused this change in perspective?

Part 3, Chapters 43-50

Reading Check

1. What do the sparklers planted by Sussy, An, and Dex say?

2. What has happened to Shay?

3. What has happened to Az?

4. Who volunteers to test the cure?

5. What does David do when Tally confesses her role in the Special Circumstances invasion?

Short-Answer

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

1. Why does Tally still feel guilty even after Shay forgives her?

2. Why does Shay not want the cure?

3. What does Tally hope will happen after her surgery?

Recommended Next Reads

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld

• The sequel to Uglies, in which Tally Youngblood has undergone a beautifying surgery
• Shared topics include societal change, rebellion, and individuality.
• Shared themes include The Importance of Knowledge and Beauty Isn’t Everything.
• Pretties on SuperSummary

A Winter’s Promise: Book One of the Mirror Visitor Quartet by Christelle Dabos

• A young adult fantasy novel in which the headstrong but quiet Ophelia is betrothed against her will to the aloof Thorn and forced to move across the world
• Shared topics include growing up, rebellion, and finding one’s own agency.
• Shared themes include the Importance of Knowledge and Individuality Versus Community.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

• In this dystopian young adult novel, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to participate in a fight-to-the death to save her sister.
• Shared topics include rebellion, fighting for what is right, standing up to authority.
• Shared themes include Individuality Versus Community and The Importance of Knowledge.
• The Hunger Games on SuperSummary