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

2. What do Goneril and Regan immediately deny King Lear after he has given up his crown?

3. With whom is Hermia in love at the beginning of A Midsummer Night's Dream?

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

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 does Valentine becomes the leader of bandits in Two Gentlemen of Verona?

2. How does Oliver try to kill Orlando in As You Like It?

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

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

5. How does Prospero find Ariel in The Tempest?

6. How are Hero and Claudio reunited at the end of Much Ado About Nothing?

7. What bad decision does Antonio make regarding borrowing money in Merchant of Venice?

8. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, how does Oberon change the hearts of the Athenian youths?

9. Why is Posthumus banished at the beginning of Cymbeline?

10. How does Leontes respond to his new daughter at the beginning of The Winter's Tale?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Many of Shakespeare's stories take place in the court of ruling people. In such stories - like Cymbeline, Macbeth, King Lear, or Hamlet - the acquisition power is the driver of conflict. Write an essay charting the way power changes hands in three such stories. Who loses power who should control it? What usurper or group of usurpers takes power, and how is this unnatural acquisition reighted by the end of the narrative?

Essay Topic 2

In much of Shakespeare's canon, death is not necessarily a complete end to an individual's influence over human events. Using The Winter's Tale, Hamlet, and Macbeth as subjects, write an essay discussing the role of ghosts and reincarnation in Shakespeare. Who returns to the realm of the living after death? When these characters return, how do they affect the world of the living? What is the nature of this return?

Essay Topic 3

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?

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