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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. When Guildenstern insists their meeting must have been chance, how does the Player reply?
(a) Stranger things have happened.
(b) It was written into a script.
(c) It might have been fate.
(d) There is no chance of chance.

2. What is the Player's response when Guildenstern asks if the troupe found them by chance?
(a) He says nothing is pure chance.
(b) He says it is in their script.
(c) He says it was.
(d) He says they heard the clinking of his coins.

3. Grabbing hold of the Player angrily, how does Guildenstern excuse himself?
(a) He says he was merely testing the Player's reflexes.
(b) He says he tripped on a rock in the road.
(c) He reminds the Player that he had offered audience participation.
(d) He pretends to black out.

4. What does Gertrude tell Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?
(a) There are two of them and Hamlet is alone.
(b) Hamlet has spoken of them and that she knows how fond of them he is.
(c) Hamlet will talk to them because they are strangers.
(d) They should get Ophelia to help them.

5. In what way is Rosencrantz defensive as he discusses the game with Guildenstern?
(a) He offers to give back all the coins.
(b) He points out that Guildenstern has done all the spinning.
(c) He suggests that guildenstern is trying to lose.
(d) He declares that he always has good luck at gambling.

Short Answer Questions

1. How are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern identified in Stoppard's script?

2. What does Guildenstern see when he looks at the coin after trying a new method?

3. What blunder does Rosencrantz make with the introductions?

4. As Rosencrantz and Guildenstern practice questioning one another, how do they keep score?

5. How many times does Rosencrantz say he has won the game?

Short Essay Questions

1. What rather unusual encounter do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern then have in the undisclosed location?

2. Describe Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as the play opens.

3. How does Guildenstern continue trying to analyze the situation?

4. Why are Guildenstern and Rosencrantz on this road and what has Guildenstern been expecting?

5. Throughout the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern never leave the stage. What stops them from following the Queen's attendants to go find Hamlet?

6. How does Gertrude reinforce the idea that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are friends of Hamlet's?

7. Trying to make sense of their situation, to what does Guildenstern think back?

8. What comic relief does the dialogue about home provide for the play?

9. How does the audience understand that Rosencrantz is quite naive?

10. Describe the somewhat bizarre entrance of Hamlet and Ophelia.

(see the answer keys)

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