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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. When the troupe runs out of money, what do they offer Guildenstern?

2. What is the fanciful conversation started by Guildenstern when Rosencrantz hears a sound.

3. What event does Guildenstern recall as they talk about questions?

4. Where does Rosencrantz want to go?

5. As the scene changes from exterior to interior, who enters the stage?

Short Essay Questions

1. Throughout the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern never leave the stage. What stops them from following the Queen's attendants to go find Hamlet?

2. What type of show does the Player attempt to offer Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?

3. Why are Guildenstern and Rosencrantz on this road and what has Guildenstern been expecting?

4. How does Guildenstern attempt to change the subject away from the coins?

5. Trying to make sense of their situation, to what does Guildenstern think back?

6. When Rosencrantz collects the coin that was under the Player's foot, why does he tell Guildenstern that he was lucky?

7. Guildenstern asks Rosencrantz if he appears to be contradicting himself. What is Rosencrantz's odd reply?

8. How does Guildenstern take advantage of the Player?

9. How does Guildenstern come across as the more intelligent of the two men?

10. What appears to be the relationship between the two men?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write a paper on madness. Using Hamlet as an example, write about the different ways he appears as mad in the play. Describe the moments in the play when Hamlet seems lucid and behaves like a normal person. Give your opinion about whether Hamlet was acting from madness when he wrote the additional scene to The Murder of Gonzalo.

Essay Topic 2

Write a paper on how reading a play is different from reading a novel. In a play, how much depends on the imagination of the reader? What is included in a novel that is missing from a play? What part does "seeing" play in the reading of a drama?

Essay Topic 3

Write a paper contrasting chance and destiny. Do you believe in destiny or fate? If so, why, and if not, why not?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 715 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample