View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Sebastian doing the last time Voila sees him in the shipwreck in Twelfth Night?

2. What keepsake does Iago use to convince Othello that Desdemona is unfaithful?

3. What relation is Claudius to Hamlet?

4. At the beginning of Taming of the Shrew, Baptista declares that Bianca shall not wed until what?

5. At the beginning of Comedy of Errors, what does Aegeon offer for his life?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why cannot Bianca get married in Taming of the Shrew?

2. What does Timon do with his chest of gold at the end of his story?

3. Describe Romeo and Juliet's meeting and courtship.

4. How does Pericles end up marrying Thaisa?

5. What plot does Claudius concoct to be rid of Hamlet at the end of the story?

6. Why is Romeo banished from Verona?

7. In Pericles, how does Marina become a slave?

8. How does Petruchio tame Katharine on their wedding day?

9. How is the opening of Twelfth Night similar to the story that begins Comedy of Errors?

10. How does Helena trick Bertram out of his ring in All's Well That Ends Well?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In much of Shakespeare's canon, death is not necessarily a complete end to an individual's influence over human events. Using The Winter's Tale, Hamlet, and Macbeth as subjects, write an essay discussing the role of ghosts and reincarnation in Shakespeare. Who returns to the realm of the living after death? When these characters return, how do they affect the world of the living? What is the nature of this return?

Essay Topic 2

Shakespeare's comedies are driven often by a sense of confusion and mistaken identity. People are not who they appear to be. In an essay, compare three comedies that make frequent use of mistaken identity to drive the plot. Is the confusion manufactured or accidental? Does it cause pain to anyone involved? How is it resolved, and are all the mysteries solved?

Part 1) Much Ado About Nothing

Part 2) Comedy of Errors

Part 3) Twelfth Night

Essay Topic 3

Coincidence plays an important role in all of the Shakespearean narratives. Individuals lose and find each other often, and always at just the right moment. Write an essay three cases of coincidence that are important to drawing the narrative forward in the story:

Part 1) How does Hermione end up in the cave where her long-estranged brothers live? Discuss the series of unconnected circumstances that drew her to this place, and why she immediately leaves it. How is all made right and this reunion explained in the end of Cymbeline?

Part 2) Discuss how Leontes loses his child at the beginning of The Winter's Tale. What series of events bring her back to him with a significant suitor? Were any of these events perpetrated by the repentant Leontes? What is the result of Paulina's return at the end of the play?

Part 3) How does the life of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, mean that coincidence is always a factor for him? Discuss the process by which Pericles loses his entire family and how he gets them back. What factors - supernatural and natural - contribute to this reunion?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,068 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample