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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. What is the Flower Girl selling?

2. Which is true of Pygmalion at the time Shaw wrote his Preface?

3. Which of the following does Shaw identify as a problem among his fellow English?

4. What does the Flower Girl call the Gentleman?

5. What makes Liza happy at the end of the evening?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Higgins think of the Flower Girl's accent? What humorous hyperbole does he use in speaking to her?

2. Why are shorthand methods inadequate for ordinary use?

3. Why does the Flower Girl become upset at the note-taker? What is she most likely afraid of?

4. Why does Liza's father come to see Higgins?

5. Why, according to Shaw, is it important that people be trained scientifically to lose their accents, rather than simply learning by imitation?

6. Why does the English language need to be reformed, according to Shaw?

7. How does Higgins feel about women?

8. What does Liza likely mean when she says "I'm a good girl, I am"? Why does she say this?

9. Describe Higgins's laboratory. What does it reveal about his character?

10. What does Higgins's housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce, think about the plan? Who seems to have a more sensible view of the situation, Higgins or Mrs. Pearce?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay examining the theme of manners in Pygmalion.

Part 1) Evaluate Higgins's statement from Act 5, "The secret is not having good manners or bad manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class carriages, and one soul is as good as another." What does he mean by this? Do you agree with him?

Part 2) Do you think Shaw agrees with him on the subject of manners? For instance, is there something honest about the rude way Higgins behaves, and something hypocritical about the "polite" manners of other people in the play?

Part 3) Which characters in the play behave the same to everyone, and which characters treat people differently depending on the class they belong to? Explain.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay examining the message about classism in the play.

Part 1) What does the play Pygmalion suggest about the relationships between the classes in England at the time of its writting (1916)?

Part 2) Which social classes are represented in the play, and how are they depicted?

Part 3) What makes Neppomuck, the ambassador, and others believe that Liza must be a princess, and what does that say about the artificiality of class distinctions?

Part 4) Who, according to the play, is a real lady, and who is a real gentleman? What makes a person a lady or a gentleman?

Part 5) What do you think Shaw ultimately wants to say about class divisions in society?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay describing the transformation of Liza Doolittle from common flower girl to lady.

Part 1) In what specific ways does she change, and why? Are the changes mostly superficial or deep changes?

Part 2) Consider Liza's statement at the end of the ambassador's party: "nothing can make me the same as these people." Is she now really transformed into a duchess? Why, or why not?

Part 3) When and how does Liza truly come into her own as a woman? What does she realize about herself at that point in the play?

Part 4) Does Liza's process of transformation have to do with the way she speaks, or does it have more to do with the way she views herself? Explain.

(see the answer keys)

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