Macbeth Summative Test and Answer Key

Item description

Eliminate assessment planning responsibilities and evaluate high school students’ knowledge of plot and literary craft with this summative test covering William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. An answer key is included, as well as a standards-based rubric for scoring essays in response to a prompt about Macbeth’s moral deterioration and the variables contributing to it. Materials are delivered in editable Word Document and printable PDF formats. A breakdown of content follows.

Part 1. Knowledge of Plot. Students will demonstrate comprehension of the following:

• The opening scene
• Macbeth’s new title
• Macbeth’s companion when first encountering the witches
• Lady Macbeth’s concerns about her husband
• A murderous plot
• Macbeth’s hallucinations
• Why Duncan’s sons are suspected of murdering their father
• Macbeth’s plan to betray a friend
• Lady Macbeth’s ironic reaction to having power
• Macbeth’s declining psychological state
• The reason for Hecate’s agitation
• Malcolm’s plan to test Macduff’s loyalty
• The death of Macduff’s family
• The effect of Macbeth’s absence on his wife
• Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking
• How Macbeth perceives his generals
• The death of Lady Macbeth
• Macduff’s victory of Macbeth
• The promise of a brighter future

Part 2. Quotations in Context. Students will match an excerpt with its appropriate context.

• Act 1, scene 2: For brave Macbeth—well he deserves that name— / Disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel, / Which smoked with bloody execution, / Like valour’s minion carved out his passage / Till he faced the slave…
• Act 1, scene 4: …nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving it…
• Act 1, scene 4: I have begun to plant thee, and will labour / To make thee full of growing.
• Act 2, scene 2: My hands are of your color, but I shame / To wear a heart so white.
• Act 3, scene 2: What’s done is done.
• Act 3, scene 3: Thou mayst revenge!
• Act 3, scene 5: And, which is worse, all you have done / Hath been but for a wayward son, / Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do, / Loves for his own ends, not for you.
• Act 4, scene 1: Though you untie the winds and let them fight / Against the churches, though the yeasty waves / Confound and swallow navigation up, / Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down, / Though castles topple on their warders’ heads, / Though palaces and pyramids do slope / Their heads to their foundations, though the treasure / Of nature’s germens tumble all together, / Even till destruction sicken, answer me / To what I ask you.
• Act 5, scene 5: …Our castle’s strength / Will laugh a siege to scorn.

Part 3. True/False and Either Or. Students will identify whether a statement is true or false, or they will identify the correct option between two choices. Questions focus on:

• Macbeth’s early internal conflict
• The names of Duncan’s sons
• The nature of Duncan’s praise of Macbeth
• Macbeth’s “dearest partner in greatness”
• Lady Macbeth’s manipulation of her husband
• The bloodied murder weapons
• Macduff’s prediction for Macbeth’s kingdom
• Banquo’s dynamic character
• How Macbeth is affected by the murders over time
• The reason for Macduff’s desire for revenge

Part 4. Application of Literary Devices. Students will be given a detail or excerpt from the drama and must determine which literary device is best reflected. Literary devices addressed include:

• Allusion
• Metaphor
• Simile
• Personification
• Oxymoron
• Hyperbole
• Sibilance

Part 5. Five-Paragraph Essay. Students will write in response to a prompt about the variables contributing to Macbeth’s ethical decline throughout the play.

Materials are available for teaching a variety of texts such as:

• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
• Feed by M.T. Anderson
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
• The Adventures of Ulysses by Bernard Evslin
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare