Stand and Deliver Trivia Quiz

Answer: A Volkswagen

The opening sequence showed Escalante driving an older Volkswagen Bug into East LA to the school where he was originally hired to teach computers. Since there were no computers he was assigned algebra. With just a few shots of the run-down neighborhoods we understand it is a poor economic area made up of mostly Latino families.

Answer: Garfield High School

Garfield High School is still located in east Los Angeles, and at the time of the movie it had a large Latino student population. There were gang problems, underfunding, and teacher burnout.

Answer: Net Head

Lou Diamond Phillips gave an outstanding performance as Angel, who took a risk by walking away from his homies to study with Escalante's core group of math students. Of interesting note is that he is of Spanish, Scottish/Irish, Chinese, Filipino, Hawaiian, and Cherokee ancestry.

Answer: False

Escalante and the math department head did not share the same philosophy about teaching upper level math to the students of the school. She felt that Escalante was setting them up to fail, whereas he felt they that would rise to the level of expectation. He expected them to take and understand the math necessary to take and pass the AP Calculus Exam.

Answer: He used a meat cleaver to slice apples.

It was a memorable scene when Escalante showed up wearing a cook's apron and short order hat. He handed out apples and asked about percentages and fractions, slicing the fruit up with a meat cleaver. This was one of the best scenes in the movie.

Answer: He brought his grandmother over to Escalante's house.

Escalante's family didn't see him much, due to all the extra hours he put in teaching, both day and night school. One rare night at dinner, around Christmas, a knock came to the door and it was Angel bringing his old grandma with him. Escalante had a soft spot for old grandmas and relented - Angel got to remain in class.

Answer: desire

His kids did need a lot of "ganas" to continue on with their studies. Many of them had to work to help support their family, while others had family who did not believe that extra school would get them anywhere in life. Others, like Angel, had to turn their backs on all that they had known, and start over with a new set of people.

Answer: Their scores were too high to be believable.

A 3 on an AP test is passing, a 4 is a high score and a 5 is perfect. Many of Escalante's student received 4s and 5s. This made the testing service believe that they must have cheated, especially since many of them got the same answers wrong. The students took the exam a second time, under close supervision, and had the same amazing results.

Answer: Kimo

"Kimo" was not intended to be a compliment at first. It was used by one of the gang members early in the movie as a put down. In essence the word means "one who knows", so the students were saying that Escalante was a know-it-all. Later the term came to mean that yes, he did know a lot, and they respected him for it.

Answer: He walked out of the school raising his fist in victory.

When Escalante heard that the test results of the retake AP test were as good or even better than the first one, he showed very little emotion, considering what an emotional ordeal the whole testing episode had been. That's why it was such a great ending when he just walked out of the building and simply raised his fist in victory. It was understated, yet quite fitting for the moment.