SparkNotes: Hamlet: Quiz

1. Whom does Polonius send to France to spy on Laertes?

(A) Reynaldo

(B) Ophelia

(C) Guido

(D) Marcellus

2. Where does the ghost appear during the play?

(A) The castle ramparts and the great hall of Elsinore

(B) Fortinbras’s tent and Hamlet’s bedchamber

(C) The castle ramparts and Gertrude’s bedchamber

(D) Gertrude’s bedchamber and the great hall of Elsinore

3. How did Claudius murder King Hamlet?

(A) By stabbing him through an arras

(B) By pouring poison into his ear

(C) By ordering him to be hanged

(D) By poisoning his wineglass

4. Where is the university at which Horatio and Hamlet studied?

(A) Paris

(B) Oxford

(C) Constantinople

(D) Wittenberg

5. Whose skull does Hamlet discover in the churchyard?

(A) The former court jester’s

(B) Reynaldo’s

(C) Ophelia’s

(D) His father’s

6. Which of the following characters cannot see the ghost?

(A) Marcellus

(B) Hamlet

(C) Gertrude

(D) Horatio

7. Who escorts Hamlet on the voyage to England?

(A) Cornelius and Voltimand

(B) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

(C) Marcellus and Bernardo

(D) Captain Vicissus and the one-eyed thief

8. Where do Hamlet and Laertes fight during Ophelia’s funeral?

(A) In the nearby woods

(B) Beside Ophelia’s grave

(C) Inside the church

(D) Inside the grave itself

9. Which of the following characters survive the play?

(A) Fortinbras, Horatio, and Osric

(B) Prince Hamlet, Polonius, and Gertrude

(C) Claudius, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern

(D) Ophelia, Laertes, and King Hamlet

10. What does Hamlet claim to be able to tell the difference between when the wind is from the south?

(A) A flea and a fire log

(B) A nymph and a nihilist

(C) A hawk and a handsaw

(D) A shark and St. Timothy

11. In whose history of Denmark did Shakespeare find background material for his play?

(A) Oedipus of Thebes

(B) Saxo Grammaticus

(C) Franz Guntherhaasen

(D) Dionysus Finn

12. How does Ophelia die?

(A) Claudius stabs her

(B) Hamlet strangles her

(C) She slits her wrists

(D) She drowns in the river

13. Whose story does Hamlet ask the players to tell upon their arrival to Elsinore?

(A) Priam and Hecuba’s

(B) Antony and Cleopatra’s

(C) Gertrude and Claudius’s

(D) His father’s

14. Why, according to Polonius, has Hamlet gone mad?

(A) He grieves too much for his father

(B) He despises Claudius for marrying Gertrude

(C) He is in love with Ophelia

(D) He is jealous of Laertes and longs to return to Wittenberg

15. Who is the last character to die in the play?

(A) Horatio

(B) Hamlet

(C) Claudius

(D) Fortinbras

16. How many characters die during the course of the play?

(A) Two

(B) Five

(C) Seven

(D) Eight

17. Who speaks the famous “To be, or not to be” soliloquy?

(A) Claudius

(B) Hamlet

(C) The ghost

(D) Laertes

18. In what country do Rosencrantz and Guildenstern die?

(A) Belgium

(B) Denmark

(C) England

(D) Poland

19. Why does Hamlet decide not to kill Claudius after the traveling players’ play?

(A) Claudius is praying

(B) Claudius is asleep

(C) Claudius pleads for mercy

(D) Gertrude is in the next room

20. Who killed Fortinbras’s father?

(A) Prince Hamlet

(B) Laertes

(C) Fortinbras

(D) Hamlet’s father

21. Which character speaks the first line of the play?

(A) Bernardo

(B) Francisco

(C) Hamlet

(D) Horatio

22. In which of the following years was Hamlet most likely written?

(A) 1570

(B) 1601

(C) 1581

(D) 1610

23. Which of Claudius and Laertes’ traps for Hamlet succeeds in killing him?

(A) The poisoned cup

(B) The sharpened sword

(C) The poisoned dagger

(D) The poisoned sword

24. Which character speaks from beneath the stage toward the end of Act I?

(A) The ghost

(B) Hamlet

(C) Claudius

(D) Polonius

25. Who returns Hamlet to Denmark after his exile?

(A) Horatio

(B) Claudius

(C) A group of pirates

(D) A group of monks