View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. In whose clothes is Margaret dressed as part of the devious plot in Much Ado About Nothing?

2. How does Lady Macbeth convince her husband to kill Duncan?

3. Which of the following is not a prophecy the witches make at the beginning of Macbeth?

4. Who is the beggar whose hovel Lear sleeps in during the storm?

5. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, what penalty does Hermia face if she refuses he father's choice of marriage?

Short Essay Questions

1. How is Paulita saved from death at a young age in The Winter's Tale?

2. Why does Macbeth kill Banquo?

3. Why does Belarius think Imogen is dead in Cymbeline?

4. In The Winter's Tale, how does Paulita convince the king of Bohemia to let her marry his son?

5. What is the rift in the spirit room at the beginning of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

6. How does Proteus betray his friend Valentine in Two Gentlemen of Verona?

7. How does Prospero find Ariel in The Tempest?

8. At the end of As You Like It, what happy news arrives concerning the banished duke?

9. Why is Cordelia banished at the beginning of King Lear?

10. Describe the interaction between Prospero and his enemies on the island at the end of The Tempest.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Coincidence plays an important role in all of the Shakespearean narratives. Individuals lose and find each other often, and always at just the right moment. Write an essay three cases of coincidence that are important to drawing the narrative forward in the story:

Part 1) How does Hermione end up in the cave where her long-estranged brothers live? Discuss the series of unconnected circumstances that drew her to this place, and why she immediately leaves it. How is all made right and this reunion explained in the end of Cymbeline?

Part 2) Discuss how Leontes loses his child at the beginning of The Winter's Tale. What series of events bring her back to him with a significant suitor? Were any of these events perpetrated by the repentant Leontes? What is the result of Paulina's return at the end of the play?

Part 3) How does the life of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, mean that coincidence is always a factor for him? Discuss the process by which Pericles loses his entire family and how he gets them back. What factors - supernatural and natural - contribute to this reunion?

Essay Topic 2

Shakespeare's stories can span the range of possible settings: some exist in one day and one location, while others take place over many lands and many years. In an essay, compare the two most extreme examples: The Tempest and Pericles. Which is the more compact of the narrative and which the more expansive? What common plot devises and character types do they share? How does each one end, and how does the setting affect the progression of the plot to this finality?

Essay Topic 3

The role of women in Shakespeare's work is remarkably ambiguous, particularly in his comedies. Choose three heroines from his comedies - Katharine, Beatrice, Helena, etc - and chart their arc over the course of the narrative. Are their objectives relatively constant throughout? Do they take their courtship into their own hands over the course of the narrative? Are they dynamic character, changing over the course of the narrative? If so, what changes them? Is it self- or society-imposed?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,181 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample