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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Guildenstern see the way the game keeps going?
(a) He thinks he must continue to entertain Rosencrantz.
(b) He think Rosencrantz is cheating, but he cannot prove it.
(c) He does not think about it.
(d) He sees it as odd, perhaps an omen.

2. What does Guildenstern want to know if the troupe knows?
(a) Any playwrights
(b) Any popular songs
(c) Any famous people
(d) Any plays

3. What type of performance does the Player say they can put on for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?
(a) Tragedy to include deaths, disclosures, unexpected turns of events, and even transvestite melodrama
(b) Mimes and dance accompanied by their musicians
(c) Only a few plays that they have memorized
(d) Comedies that will give them stitches in their sides

4. What does Guildenstern see when he looks at the coin after trying a new method?
(a) His hand is dirty.
(b) Heads
(c) Tails
(d) Nothing. The coin has disappeared.

5. Why is the Player so happy to see the two men?
(a) To put on a show because they were forgetting their lines
(b) To sell them the musical instruments
(c) To get them to tell tales they can act on the stage
(d) To borrow their cloaks for a show

6. How does the dialogue change when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern speak with Claudius and Gertrude?
(a) They use Shakespearean English.
(b) They speak in riddles.
(c) The speak French.
(d) They are too stunned to speak.

7. How does Guildenstern summarize that day?
(a) They were awakened at dawn with a message, a summons, and a new record for heads and tails.
(b) Right after breakfast they got a summons for jury duty.
(c) They got a message to come quickly but it did not tell them where.
(d) they were sleeping and suddenly found themselves on a road they don't know.

8. What is the fanciful conversation started by Guildenstern when Rosencrantz hears a sound.
(a) About unicorns
(b) About the fife and drum
(c) About calssical music
(d) About things that go bump in the night

9. What is the Player's response when Rosencrantz asks if the two of them are enough for an audience?
(a) The Player says it is all right if they pay extra for the show.
(b) The Player says they do not have time to put on a show right then.
(c) The Player says they will have to find more people to attend the show.
(d) He says two is small for an audience but about average for voyeurs.

10. How does Gertrude respond when she hears Guildenstern's prayer?
(a) She says, "Amen."
(b) She says, "Thy will be done."
(c) She says, "You need more than prayer."
(d) She says, "Praise the Lord."

11. Who are the well-dressed Elizabethan gentlemen at the opening of the play?
(a) Hamlet and Horatio
(b) Procter and Gamble
(c) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
(d) Claudius and Polonius

12. What are the instruments the musicians play?
(a) Drum, flute, and horn
(b) Horn, flute, and harpsichord
(c) Trumpet, drum, and harp
(d) Bagpipe, horn, and cymbals

13. How does Guildenstern reply to Rosencrantz's idea about how Guildenstern must be feeling?
(a) He says that he doesn't mind losing because Rosencrantz is his friend.
(b) He says he is not really thinking about the game.
(c) He says there are plenty more coins where those came from.
(d) He says there is suspense while the coins are in the air.

14. What does Claudius request of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?
(a) To explain why they are there
(b) To play a game of coins
(c) To sing and dance
(d) To try to figure out what is bothering Hamlet

15. What does Guildenstern continue doing with the coin tosses?
(a) Biting them before tossing them
(b) Using only the heaviest coins
(c) Trying different ways of tossing them
(d) Saying a prayer before tossing them

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Rosencrantz's reply when Guildenstern asks if he contradicts himself?

2. What does Guildenstern mean when he says he is afraid, too?

3. When Guildenstern assures Rosencrantz that they will be all right, what is Rosencrantz's reply?

4. When the troupe runs out of money, what do they offer Guildenstern?

5. What is Guildenstern's angry reply to the Player's suggestion?

(see the answer keys)

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