Oedipus Rex

This flexible-use quiz is designed for reading comprehension assessment and activity needs in classroom, home-schooling and other settings. Questions connect to the text’s plot, characters, and themes — and align with the content and chapter organization in the rest of this study guide. Use quizzes as pre-reading hooks, reading checks, discussion starters, entrance/exit “tickets,” small group activities, writing activities, and lessons on finding evidence and support in a text.

Depth of Knowledge Levels: Questions require respondents to demonstrate ability to: 

1. Recall and Understand Content (e.g., who, what, where, when) 
2. Apply and Analyze Ideas (e.g., how and why)

1. What city is Oedipus the ruler of?

A) Sparta

B) Athens

C) Thebes

D) Corinth

2. As the play opens, what step has Oedipus taken to address the plague ravaging his city?

A) He has sent his brother-in-law to seek the advice of an expert physician.

B) He has sent his brother-in-law to seek the advice of the oracle of Apollo.

C) He has sacrificed a portion of the city’s harvest and livestock to Zeus.

D) He has sacrificed a portion of the city’s harvest and livestock to Apollo.

3. Oedipus’s pledge to “fight for [Laius] as if he were [his] father” (line 301) is an example of which of the following?

A) comic irony

B) verbal irony

C) situational irony