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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. About how much do Liza's clothes cost?

2. What does the ambassador's wife think of Liza?

3. What does Liza say when she sees her father looking so different in Act 5?

4. Whom do Higgins and Pickering go see when they discover Liza is missing?

5. What does Liza ask Higgins about her clothes?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is Liza so upset in Act 4? What does she want to know?

2. Describe Mrs. Higgins and her relationship with her son.

3. How do Freddy and Clara feel about Liza after meeting her, and why do they probably feel this way?

4. What does Higgins conclude about the evening and about their joint project at the beginning of Act 4? What does he say that hurts Liza's feelings?

5. What does Higgins mean when he says that "my manners are exactly the same as Pickering's"? In what sense is he right? In what sense is he wrong?

6. How does Higgins behave during the social visit? Explain. What does this "gentleman's" ungentlemanly behavior suggest about class differences?

7. How does Freddy feel about Liza and what does he want from her? How is he different from Higgins?

8. How does Liza finally come into her own as a woman at the end of Act 5?

9. During the social visit with Mrs. Higgins and the Eynsford Hills, what does Liza say that is shocking?

10. What does Pickering think about the evening? How do his feelings differ from Higgins's? How does he succeed in hurting Liza as well?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Compare and contrast the characters of Freddy and Higgins.

Part 1) How are Freddy and Higgins similar and different? Consider all of the following:

--their social class and wealth

--their personalities

--their skills and abilities

--their attitudes toward Liza

Part 2) Why is Higgins not a suitable husband for Liza, while Freddy is? Explain.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay examining the attitudes toward love and marriage in the play.

Part 1) How does Shaw satirize, or make fun of, conventional attitudes toward love and marriage, for instance, through Higgins and Doolittle?

Part 2) What, according to Shaw in his Epilogue, is the balance of power men and women seek in marriage? What is an ideal marriage like?

Part 3) Why do some men never marry?

(see the answer keys)

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