William Shakespeare · ready
Hamlet: act checks
5 checks, 40 questions, answer key with the line of the text behind each answer, and a rubric for each written answer.
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Checks
- Act 1
- Act 2
- Act 3
- Act 4
- Act 5
Two questions from Act 1
1. In Scene 1, the Ghost returns and Horatio begs it to speak. What happens just as it seems about to answer?
- A Barnardo cries out and frightens it away
- B The bell strikes one and it falls silent
- C A cock crows and it starts away
- D Hamlet arrives and it turns toward him
Answer key
C. Barnardo says the Ghost "was about to speak, when the cock crew," and Horatio describes it starting "like a guilty thing"; Hamlet is not on the platform in Scene 1.
2. When Claudius turns to "my cousin Hamlet, and my son," Hamlet says aside, "A little more than kin, and less than kind." What does the aside suggest?
- A He is grateful that Claudius has named him the next heir
- B He thinks Claudius has no royal blood at all
- C He would rather be called a son than a cousin
- D He is doubly related to Claudius yet feels no warmth
Answer key
D. As uncle and now stepfather, Claudius is "more than kin," yet Hamlet feels nothing "kind" (natural or loving) toward him; the bitter aside rules out gratitude.
What you get
- Student checks (PDF, US Letter). Name, date and score lines; each check starts on a new page.
- Answer key (PDF, kept apart). The right letter, one line on why, and the line of the text that proves it. A 2-1-0 rubric for every written answer.
- Canvas and Schoology. A QTI 1.2 ZIP: one quiz per check, multiple choice graded automatically.
- Google Forms. A CSV and a short script that turns it into one self-grading quiz per check, in your own Drive.
- Any other quiz tool. The same CSV: question, options A to D, right answer, points, rubric.
Edition and public-domain status
Text used: Project Gutenberg eBook #1524 (gutenberg.org/ebooks/1524). William Shakespeare died in 1616 and the work was first published in 1603 (Q1); 1623 (First Folio): public domain in the United States, and under the stricter rule we apply for sales abroad (author dead before 1925). Questions refer to acts and scenes, not pages.