ACT III - Scene II Quiz — Hamlet

What does Hamlet tell the players is the purpose of acting?

• To entertain the groundlings with spectacle
• To hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature
• To outdo the town crier in volume and passion
• To impress the King and Queen with elaborate speeches

What task does Hamlet assign to Horatio during the performance of The Murder of Gonzago?

• To narrate the play as a chorus
• To watch Claudius for signs of guilt
• To guard the doors so no one leaves
• To sit beside Gertrude and observe her reactions

What is the formal title of the play Hamlet calls "The Mousetrap"?

• The Tragedy of the Player King
• The Death of Priam
• The Murder of Gonzago
• The Poisoning of the Garden King

Who says "The lady doth protest too much, methinks"?

• Ophelia
• Hamlet
• Gertrude
• Polonius

How does Claudius react when Lucianus pours poison into the Player King's ear?

• He applauds the performance and asks for more
• He whispers to Polonius to stop the play
• He rises and cries out for light, fleeing the hall
• He faints and must be carried from the room

What role does Polonius claim he once played at the university?

• King Lear
• Macbeth
• Julius Caesar
• Othello

What extended metaphor does Hamlet use to confront Guildenstern after the play?

• He compares Guildenstern to a poisonous serpent
• He compares himself to a recorder that Guildenstern cannot play
• He compares the court to a prison with invisible bars
• He compares Claudius to a player king wearing a borrowed crown

What does Hamlet resolve in his soliloquy at the end of Act 3, Scene 2?

• To kill Claudius immediately
• To flee Denmark with Horatio
• To speak daggers to his mother but use none
• To reveal the Ghost's message to the entire court

Which of these events actually happened in this chapter?

In Hamlet's line "If his occulted guilt / Do not itself unkennel," what does "occulted" mean?

• Overwhelming
• Hidden or concealed
• Supernatural
• Inherited

What does Hamlet mean when he calls the play "The Mousetrap" and says the name applies "tropically"?

• The play is set in a tropical location
• The name applies figuratively, by way of a trope
• The name refers to a tropical disease like the poison used
• The play rotates through different scenes like a tropic

When Guildenstern says Claudius is "distemper'd" and Hamlet asks "With drink?", Guildenstern corrects him: "rather with choler." What does "choler" mean?

• A respiratory disease
• Deep sadness or melancholy
• Anger or hot-tempered irritability
• A state of religious devotion