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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 happens to the troupe still dressed in their costumes?

2. Where does Hamlet tell Ophelia to go?

3. What does Guildenstern say about death?

4. What does Rosencrantz realize about the costumes of two of the troupe?

5. Still in the dark, what do the two realize?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the tragic news Claudius bears when he and Gertrude enter to find Rosencrantz and Guildenstern?

2. When the lights finally do come up in Act 3, what does the audience see?

3. What happens over the subject of money?

4. When Hamlet does return, what does he say about the body?

5. Tell about the dialogue between Rosencrantz and Guildenstern after Rosencrantz insists they have permission to leave.

6. What blunder does Rosencrantz make over what he thinks is a woman?

7. What are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern doing at the beginning of Act 2?

8. What does Hamlet ask the Player?

9. What transpires when Rosencrantz brings up the subject of death?

10. What causes Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to laugh over the new coin game?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write a paper on staged plays as opposed to films. Discuss what you think the advantages and disadvantages are of both types. What are the elements of entertainment one gets from the staged play that is missing from a film and vice versa? Give examples from your own experience.

Essay Topic 2

Write a paper on costuming for a play. Hamlet has been staged often in modern dress. Why, then, is it important in Stoppard's play that the costumes be Elizabethan? What do you think the costumes add to the play?

Essay Topic 3

Write a paper on the tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive. Using the lies Rosencrantz and Guildenstern told Claudius about the whereabouts of Hamlet, discuss in your paper how telling lies almost always ends in difficult situations. Give a real world example.

(see the answer keys)

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