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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Preface to Pygmalion. A Professor of Phonetics.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who is Alexander Melville Bell?
(a) A phonetics expert who invented a phonetic spelling called Visible Speech.
(b) A London patriarch.
(c) A playwright who was a rival of Shaw's.
(d) The inventor of the telephone.

2. Which of the following does Shaw identify as a problem among his fellow English?
(a) The English are snobs who look down on people who can't speak English.
(b) The English do not bother to learn other European languages.
(c) The English can't speak their own language properly.
(d) The English are poor spellers.

3. Which character in Pygmalion is based in part on Henry Sweet?
(a) Pickering.
(b) Higgins.
(c) Doolittle.
(d) Neppomuck.

4. What is one of Shaw's purposes in writing this play?
(a) To entertain people and make them forget their worries for another day.
(b) To make people aware of the social inequalities in England.
(c) To let people know of the existence of phoneticians and how important they are.
(d) To encourage people to value all types of accents in English.

5. What does Sweet think of the Pitman system?
(a) He doesn't like it because it is not phonetic.
(b) He thinks it is brilliant and uses it as a model.
(c) He despises it.
(d) He never knows of it because he dies before it is invented.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why doesn't Sweet's shorthand become popular?

2. What is a problem with the English language, according to Shaw?

3. On what basis do some English people despise others?

4. What does Shaw try to do for Sweet?

5. At which university does Sweet teach?

(see the answer key)

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