Literature for grades 3–4: questions with answers
The Literature questions for grades 3–4 from the game, with the correct answers and an explanation for each.
Hamlet is the prince of which country?
- Norway
- Denmark
- Scotland
- England
Correct answer: Denmark — Shakespeare set the play at Elsinore, the castle of Kronborg in Denmark, which still stands today.
Who created the detective Sherlock Holmes?
- Agatha Christie
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- Edgar Allan Poe
Correct answer: Arthur Conan Doyle — Holmes first appeared in A Study in Scarlet in 1887; Conan Doyle was a doctor by training.
Who wrote Frankenstein?
- Mary Shelley
- Bram Stoker
- Emily Brontë
- Edgar Allan Poe
Correct answer: Mary Shelley — Mary Shelley began the novel at 18 during a rainy summer on Lake Geneva in 1816, after a ghost-story contest.
Who wrote A Christmas Carol?
- Charles Dickens
- Lewis Carroll
- Robert Louis Stevenson
- Thomas Hardy
Correct answer: Charles Dickens — Dickens wrote the story of Ebenezer Scrooge in just six weeks in 1843, and it sold out by Christmas Eve.
Who wrote Pride and Prejudice?
- Charlotte Brontë
- George Eliot
- Jane Austen
- Virginia Woolf
Correct answer: Jane Austen — Austen published the novel of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy anonymously in 1813, credited only as "by the author of Sense and Sensibility".
In which Italian city is Romeo and Juliet set?
- Venice
- Florence
- Rome
- Verona
Correct answer: Verona — Verona still shows tourists a balcony said to be Juliet's, though the house has no real link to the play.
Which fairy-tale heroine lets down her long hair from a tower?
- Snow White
- Rapunzel
- Cinderella
- Sleeping Beauty
Correct answer: Rapunzel — In the Grimms' tale, Rapunzel is named after the rampion plant her mother craved during pregnancy.
Who wrote the tragedy Faust?
- Friedrich Schiller
- Heinrich Heine
- Bertolt Brecht
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Correct answer: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — Goethe worked on Faust for some 60 years; the scholar sells his soul to Mephistopheles in exchange for knowledge and pleasure.
Who wrote Heidi, the story of a girl in the Swiss Alps?
- Astrid Lindgren
- Johanna Spyri
- Frances Hodgson Burnett
- Lucy Maud Montgomery
Correct answer: Johanna Spyri — The Swiss author published Heidi in 1880–81; it has been translated into more than 50 languages.
Who wrote Crime and Punishment?
- Leo Tolstoy
- Alexander Pushkin
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Ivan Turgenev
Correct answer: Fyodor Dostoevsky — The student Raskolnikov murders a pawnbroker in St Petersburg and is tormented by guilt; the novel appeared in 1866.
Who wrote the novel Anna Karenina?
- Leo Tolstoy
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Anton Chekhov
- Boris Pasternak
Correct answer: Leo Tolstoy — Tolstoy published the novel in instalments between 1875 and 1877; Anna's affair with Count Vronsky ends in tragedy.
Who wrote Les Misérables?
- Émile Zola
- Gustave Flaubert
- Honoré de Balzac
- Victor Hugo
Correct answer: Victor Hugo — Hugo's 1862 novel follows the ex-convict Jean Valjean, hunted for decades by the policeman Javert.
Who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo?
- Jules Verne
- Alexandre Dumas
- Guy de Maupassant
- Victor Hugo
Correct answer: Alexandre Dumas — Edmond Dantès is wrongly imprisoned in the Château d'If, escapes and takes revenge; the novel appeared in 1844–46.
Who wrote The Divine Comedy?
- Petrarch
- Boccaccio
- Dante Alighieri
- Niccolò Machiavelli
Correct answer: Dante Alighieri — Dante wrote his journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise in Italian rather than Latin, which helped shape the modern language.
Who wrote One Hundred Years of Solitude?
- Jorge Luis Borges
- Pablo Neruda
- Mario Vargas Llosa
- Gabriel García Márquez
Correct answer: Gabriel García Márquez — The 1967 novel follows seven generations of the Buendía family in the fictional town of Macondo.
What does Don Quixote attack, believing them to be giants?
- Castles
- Ships
- Bulls
- Windmills
Correct answer: Windmills — The scene gave English the phrase "tilting at windmills", meaning to fight imaginary enemies.
Which Greek hero's ten-year journey home from Troy is told in the Odyssey?
- Achilles
- Hector
- Odysseus
- Agamemnon
Correct answer: Odysseus — Odysseus is called Ulysses in Latin; on his way home to Ithaca he meets the Cyclops, Circe and the Sirens.
In which city did Anne Frank write her diary while in hiding?
- Berlin
- Amsterdam
- Vienna
- Prague
Correct answer: Amsterdam — Anne's family hid for two years in a secret annexe behind her father's office on the Prinsengracht canal.
What flower does the Little Prince tend on his tiny planet?
- A rose
- A tulip
- A lily
- A daisy
Correct answer: A rose — The vain but beloved rose is often read as a portrait of Saint-Exupéry's wife Consuelo.
Who tells the stories in One Thousand and One Nights?
- Scheherazade
- Ali Baba
- Sinbad the Sailor
- Aladdin
Correct answer: Scheherazade — Scheherazade tells the king a new tale each night, stopping at dawn so that he spares her life to hear the end.