King Lear Test and Answer Key

Eliminate assessment planning responsibilities and evaluate high school students’ knowledge of plot and literary craft with this summative test covering William Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear. An answer key is included, as well as a standards-based rubric for scoring a thematic essay response tied to a significant quotation (“Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides, / Who covers faults at last with shame derides”). Materials are delivered in editable Word Document and printable PDF formats. Students are responsible for demonstrating an understanding of the following characters, details, concepts, and quotes:

• Cordelia
• Goneril
• Regan
• King Lear
• Edmund
• Edgar
• Kent
• Albany
• Cornwall
• The Fool
• Gloucester
• Oswald
• The King of France
• Tom of Bedlam
• The play’s setting
• Edmund’s status as an illegitimate child and associated consequences
• Edmund’s promotion to Earl of Gloucester
• Cornwall’s torture of Gloucester
• Edgar’s philosophies on life
• Edmund’s desire to kill his father
• King Lear’s epiphany regarding power and its benefits
• King Lear’s imprisonment
• Metaphor
• Simile
• Foreshadowing
• Situational irony
• Dramatic irony
• Paradox
• Alliteration
• Hyperbole
• Personification
• Internal conflict
• External conflict
• Dynamic character
• Symbolism
• “Nothing will come from nothing.” (Act 1, scene 1)
• “I love your Majesty / According to my bond; no more no less.” (Act 1, scene 1)
• “Let his knights have colder looks among you.” (Act 1, scene 3)
• “Fortune, good night; smile once more; turn thy wheel!” (Act 2, scene 2)
• “The younger rises when the old doth fall.” (Act 3, scene 3)
• “I will have my revenge ere I depart this house.” (Act 3, scene 5)
• “Out, vile jelly!” (Act 3, scene 7)
• “I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; / I stumbled when I saw.” (Act 4, scene 1)
• “Was this a face / To be opposed against the warring winds?”(Act 4, scene 7)
• “You have some cause; they have not.”(Act 4, scene 7)
• “Ripeness is all.” (Act 5, scene 2)
• “My master calls me, I must not say no.” (Act 5, scene 3)