Plays, Poems & Short Stories

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

1.Which play closes with "For never was a story of more woe"?
- A. Romeo and Juliet
- B. The Cherry Orchard
- C. Blood Wedding
- D. Our Town
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Romeo and Juliet
Did you know? The Prince's closing lament follows the lovers' deaths.
2.Which poem opens with "Half a league, half a league"?
- A. Beowulf
- B. The Aeneid
- C. "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"
- D. The Charge of the Light Brigade
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The Charge of the Light Brigade
Did you know? Tennyson's poem honours the 1854 cavalry charge at Balaklava.
3.Which short story features the Headless Horseman?
- A. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
- B. "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
- C. "The Dead"
- D. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
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"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
Did you know? Washington Irving's tale made Sleepy Hollow famous.
4.Which play centers on a Moorish general and the schemer Iago?
- A. Othello
- B. Uncle Vanya
- C. Waiting for Godot
- D. King Lear
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Othello
Did you know? Othello is one of Shakespeare's four great tragedies.
5.Which poem follows Aeneas from Troy toward Italy?
- A. The Aeneid
- B. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
- C. The Canterbury Tales
- D. Leaves of Grass
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The Aeneid
Did you know? Virgil asked for the Aeneid to be burned at his death; Augustus spared it.
6.Which short story tells of a man who sleeps for twenty years?
- A. "The Dead"
- B. "Rip Van Winkle"
- C. "The Gift of the Magi"
- D. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
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"Rip Van Winkle"
Did you know? Washington Irving set Rip Van Winkle in the Catskill Mountains.
7.Which play centers on traveling salesman Willy Loman?
- A. Uncle Vanya
- B. Death of a Salesman
- C. Blood Wedding
- D. The Seagull
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Death of a Salesman
Did you know? Death of a Salesman won the Pulitzer Prize in 1949.
8.Which poem opens with "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary"?
- A. If—
- B. Beowulf
- C. The Raven
- D. Annabel Lee
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The Raven
Did you know? Poe's narrator ponders over "a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore".
9.Which play centers on Blanche DuBois in New Orleans?
- A. Waiting for Godot
- B. Blood Wedding
- C. Othello
- D. A Streetcar Named Desire
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A Streetcar Named Desire
Did you know? Marlon Brando starred in the original Broadway cast of A Streetcar Named Desire.
10.Which poem opens with the speaker wandering lonely as a cloud?
- A. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
- B. Metamorphoses
- C. "O Captain! My Captain!"
- D. Kubla Khan
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"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
Did you know? Wordsworth's daffodils poem is nicknamed "Daffodils".
11.Which play centers on a Scottish general spurred by prophecy?
- A. Our Town
- B. Macbeth
- C. The Tempest
- D. Romeo and Juliet
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Macbeth
Did you know? Macbeth is famously called "the Scottish play" by theatre people.
12.Which poem opens with "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"?
- A. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
- B. Leaves of Grass
- C. Sonnet 18
- D. Paradise Lost
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Sonnet 18
Did you know? Shakespeare promises his beloved eternal life in verse.
13.Which play weaves together lovers, fairies, and a troupe of actors?
- A. A Midsummer Night's Dream
- B. The Taming of the Shrew
- C. Much Ado About Nothing
- D. The Comedy of Errors
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
Did you know? A Midsummer Night's Dream features the character Puck.
14.Which poem tells of a sailor who shoots an albatross?
- A. "O Captain! My Captain!"
- B. "Ozymandias"
- C. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
- D. If—
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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Did you know? Coleridge's mariner is cursed to retell his tale forever.
15.Which play centers on a monarch dividing his kingdom among his daughters?
- A. King Lear
- B. Blood Wedding
- C. The Cherry Orchard
- D. Death of a Salesman
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King Lear
Did you know? King Lear and Macbeth are among Shakespeare's great tragedies.
16.Which poem features a bird repeating "Nevermore"?
- A. Song of Myself
- B. Metamorphoses
- C. The Raven
- D. Sonnet 18
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The Raven
Did you know? "The Raven" made Poe famous overnight in 1845.
17.Which poem opens with "'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves"?
- A. Jabberwocky
- B. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
- C. Kubla Khan
- D. Song of Myself
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Jabberwocky
Did you know? Carroll's nonsense poem appears in Through the Looking-Glass.
18.Which poem opens with "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood"?
- A. The Lake Isle of Innisfree
- B. The Song of Hiawatha
- C. "Ozymandias"
- D. "The Road Not Taken"
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"The Road Not Taken"
Did you know? Frost's speaker recalls choosing the road less traveled.
19.Which poem describes a ruined statue of a forgotten king?
- A. "Ozymandias"
- B. The Song of Hiawatha
- C. "O Captain! My Captain!"
- D. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
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"Ozymandias"
Did you know? Shelley's "Ozymandias" was written for a sonnet-writing contest.
20.Which poem retells the fall of Adam and Eve?
- A. Paradise Lost
- B. The Lake Isle of Innisfree
- C. "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
- D. Jabberwocky
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Paradise Lost
Did you know? Milton composed Paradise Lost while completely blind.
21.Which poem opens with "'Twas the night before Christmas"?
- A. "A Visit from St. Nicholas"
- B. "Because I could not stop for Death"
- C. "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"
- D. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
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"A Visit from St. Nicholas"
Did you know? The poem cemented the modern image of Santa Claus and his reindeer.
22.Which poem opens with "If you can keep your head when all about you"?
- A. Invictus
- B. "Hope" is the thing with feathers
- C. If—
- D. Beowulf
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If—
Did you know? Kipling framed the poem as advice from father to son.
23.Which poem opens with "It was many and many a year ago"?
- A. Beowulf
- B. Annabel Lee
- C. Paradise Lost
- D. "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"
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Annabel Lee
Did you know? Poe's Annabel Lee lies in a kingdom by the sea.
24.Which poem ends with a choice remembered as decisive?
- A. The Charge of the Light Brigade
- B. "The Road Not Taken"
- C. The Waste Land
- D. Paradise Lost
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"The Road Not Taken"
Did you know? Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" appeared in Mountain Interval (1916).
25.Which play centers on a bride who flees her wedding?
- A. Blood Wedding
- B. Othello
- C. The Cherry Orchard
- D. Tartuffe
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Blood Wedding
Did you know? Blood Wedding (1933) is the first of Lorca's rural tragedies.
26.Which poem follows pilgrims telling stories on the road to Canterbury?
- A. The Song of Hiawatha
- B. Paradise Lost
- C. The Canterbury Tales
- D. The Lake Isle of Innisfree
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The Canterbury Tales
Did you know? Chaucer left The Canterbury Tales unfinished at his death.
27.Which short story follows a daydreamer through imaginary heroics?
- A. "The Lottery"
- B. "The Gift of the Magi"
- C. "Rip Van Winkle"
- D. "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
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"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
Did you know? Thurber's Walter Mitty gave English the word "Mittyesque".
28.Which play centers on an aristocratic family losing its estate?
- A. The Cherry Orchard
- B. The Seagull
- C. Uncle Vanya
- D. Hamlet
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The Cherry Orchard
Did you know? Chekhov called The Cherry Orchard a comedy; directors often stage it as tragedy.
29.Which poem tells of a hero who battles Grendel?
- A. Beowulf
- B. The Charge of the Light Brigade
- C. "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night"
- D. Jabberwocky
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Beowulf
Did you know? Beowulf survives in a single manuscript, the Nowell Codex.
30.Which short story follows a hanged man's final moments?
- A. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
- B. "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
- C. "The Dead"
- D. "Rip Van Winkle"
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"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
Did you know? Ambrose Bierce's story ends with a famous reveal.

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