Plays, Poems & Short Stories

29 questions · Answers revealed below each question · Print this set

1.Which play turns on invented identities and a handbag?
- A. Othello
- B. Macbeth
- C. The Importance of Being Earnest
- D. A Midsummer Night's Dream
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The Importance of Being Earnest
Did you know? Wilde called The Importance of Being Earnest "a trivial comedy for serious people".
2.Which poem opens with "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure-dome decree"?
- A. "A Visit from St. Nicholas"
- B. "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"
- C. Kubla Khan
- D. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
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Kubla Khan
Did you know? Coleridge's fragment opens in the pleasure-grounds of Xanadu.
3.Which short story tells of a couple trading their treasures for Christmas gifts?
- A. "The Necklace"
- B. "The Gift of the Magi"
- C. "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
- D. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
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"The Gift of the Magi"
Did you know? O. Henry's story ends with a famous ironic twist.
4.Which play centers on the exiled magician Prospero?
- A. Waiting for Godot
- B. Othello
- C. The Tempest
- D. A Streetcar Named Desire
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The Tempest
Did you know? The Tempest is widely read as Shakespeare's farewell to the stage.
5.Which poem opens with a call to a fallen captain?
- A. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
- B. Casey at the Bat
- C. "O Captain! My Captain!"
- D. Invictus
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"O Captain! My Captain!"
Did you know? Whitman's elegy mourns Abraham Lincoln.
6.Which short story follows a woman who borrows a jewel for a ball?
- A. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
- B. "Rip Van Winkle"
- C. "The Necklace"
- D. "The Lady, or the Tiger?"
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"The Necklace"
Did you know? Maupassant's twist ending made "The Necklace" a classic.
7.Which play shows two men waiting endlessly by a tree?
- A. Waiting for Godot
- B. Death of a Salesman
- C. A Midsummer Night's Dream
- D. Uncle Vanya
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Waiting for Godot
Did you know? Waiting for Godot premiered in Paris in 1953, in French.
8.Which poem opens with "April is the cruellest month"?
- A. Invictus
- B. Casey at the Bat
- C. The Waste Land
- D. "A Visit from St. Nicholas"
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The Waste Land
Did you know? Eliot's Waste Land opens with a reversal of Chaucer's springtime pilgrims.
9.Which short story ends with a village ritual turning sinister?
- A. "The Dead"
- B. "The Necklace"
- C. "The Lottery"
- D. "The Lady, or the Tiger?"
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"The Lottery"
Did you know? "The Lottery" ran in The New Yorker in 1948 and drew floods of mail.
10.Which play centers on estate caretakers facing wasted years?
- A. Blood Wedding
- B. The Importance of Being Earnest
- C. King Lear
- D. Uncle Vanya
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Uncle Vanya
Did you know? Uncle Vanya premiered in 1899 at the Moscow Art Theatre.
11.Which poem opens with a patient etherized upon a table?
- A. Casey at the Bat
- B. The Canterbury Tales
- C. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
- D. Invictus
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The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Did you know? Prufrock was Eliot's first major poem, published in 1915.
12.Which short story reconstructs the life of a reclusive Southern woman?
- A. "The Necklace"
- B. "The Lottery"
- C. "Rip Van Winkle"
- D. "A Rose for Emily"
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"A Rose for Emily"
Did you know? Faulkner's story was first published in 1930.
13.Which play closes with Horatio's "Good night, sweet prince"?
- A. Our Town
- B. Hamlet
- C. Blood Wedding
- D. The Seagull
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Hamlet
Did you know? Hamlet dies with the words "The rest is silence."
14.Which poem opens with "Out of the night that covers me"?
- A. "O Captain! My Captain!"
- B. The Lake Isle of Innisfree
- C. Invictus
- D. Song of Myself
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Invictus
Did you know? Henley's closing couplet credits his "unconquerable soul".
15.Which poem retells Greek myths linked by transformations?
- A. Metamorphoses
- B. The Canterbury Tales
- C. Beowulf
- D. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
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Metamorphoses
Did you know? Ovid's Metamorphoses spans creation to the deification of Caesar.
16.Which poem opens with "I will arise and go now"?
- A. The Aeneid
- B. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
- C. "Hope" is the thing with feathers
- D. The Lake Isle of Innisfree
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The Lake Isle of Innisfree
Did you know? Yeats's Innisfree poem longs for a bee-loud island retreat.
17.Which poem is the life-work collection of Whitman's free verse?
- A. Beowulf
- B. Leaves of Grass
- C. The Waste Land
- D. The Raven
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Leaves of Grass
Did you know? Whitman kept adding poems to Leaves of Grass until his death.
18.Which play depicts daily life in the town of Grover's Corners?
- A. Waiting for Godot
- B. Our Town
- C. The Tempest
- D. Uncle Vanya
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Our Town
Did you know? Thornton Wilder's Our Town is staged with a nearly bare stage.
19.Which poem opens with "I celebrate myself, and sing myself"?
- A. Leaves of Grass
- B. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
- C. Song of Myself
- D. "Ozymandias"
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Song of Myself
Did you know? Song of Myself grew across editions of Leaves of Grass.
20.Which short story closes with snow "falling faintly... upon all the living and the dead"?
- A. "The Necklace"
- B. "The Dead"
- C. "A Rose for Emily"
- D. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
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"The Dead"
Did you know? Gabriel's epiphany at the window closes Joyce's story.
21.Which play centers on an aspiring writer and an actress in the countryside?
- A. The Importance of Being Earnest
- B. The Seagull
- C. Othello
- D. The Tempest
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The Seagull
Did you know? The Seagull's 1898 revival made the Moscow Art Theatre famous.
22.Which poem pleads against dying quietly?
- A. "The Road Not Taken"
- B. "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"
- C. "O Captain! My Captain!"
- D. Leaves of Grass
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"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"
Did you know? Dylan Thomas wrote the villanelle for his dying father.
23.Which short story ends on a famous unresolved choice?
- A. "The Lottery"
- B. "The Necklace"
- C. "The Lady, or the Tiger?"
- D. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
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"The Lady, or the Tiger?"
Did you know? Frank Stockton's tale is used to teach open endings.
24.Which play centers on a hypocritical religious impostor?
- A. The Tempest
- B. Tartuffe
- C. Uncle Vanya
- D. Hamlet
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Tartuffe
Did you know? Tartuffe was banned for years after Louis XIV first suppressed it.
25.Which poem opens with the Mudville nine down in the score?
- A. "O Captain! My Captain!"
- B. Jabberwocky
- C. Leaves of Grass
- D. Casey at the Bat
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Casey at the Bat
Did you know? Thayer's comic ballad ends with Casey striking out.
26.Which short story closes Joyce's Dubliners with an epiphany at a party?
- A. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
- B. "The Dead"
- C. "The Lady, or the Tiger?"
- D. "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
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"The Dead"
Did you know? "The Dead" was adapted by John Huston into his final film.
27.Which poem imagines Death as a courteous carriage driver?
- A. The Song of Hiawatha
- B. Beowulf
- C. Annabel Lee
- D. "Because I could not stop for Death"
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"Because I could not stop for Death"
Did you know? Emily Dickinson's death-carriage poem is one of her most anthologized.
28.Which poem opens "Hope is the thing with feathers"?
- A. "Hope" is the thing with feathers
- B. Kubla Khan
- C. "O Captain! My Captain!"
- D. Casey at the Bat
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"Hope" is the thing with feathers
Did you know? Dickinson's hope poem never stops singing, in her metaphor.
29.Which poem recites an Ojibwe hero's deeds in trochaic tetrameter?
- A. "The Road Not Taken"
- B. Jabberwocky
- C. Casey at the Bat
- D. The Song of Hiawatha
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The Song of Hiawatha
Did you know? Longfellow's Hiawatha borrows the meter of the Finnish Kalevala.

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