Q 01/05

Besides biology, which language did Sylvia Plath's father Otto teach at Boston University?

A) French

B) German

C) Latin

D) Russian

Answer · why

B) German

German: Aurelia met Otto when he was her professor there, and they married in January 1932, the year Sylvia was born.

Q 02/05

Plath's father Otto, a Boston University biology professor, wrote a 1934 book about which insects?

A) Ants

B) Butterflies

C) Termites

D) Bumblebees

Answer · why

D) Bumblebees

Bumblebees were Otto's specialty, and decades later Sylvia took up beekeeping herself and wrote a sequence of bee poems.

Q 03/05

Otto Plath died in 1940 of complications from what?

A) Untreated diabetes

B) Lung cancer

C) A heart attack

D) Tuberculosis

Answer · why

A) Untreated diabetes

Untreated diabetes killed him in 1940, when Sylvia was eight, and his death haunts her most infamous poem, 'Daddy'.

Q 04/05

Plath published her first poem at what age?

A) Twelve

B) Eight

C) Fifteen

D) Seventeen

Answer · why

B) Eight

It appeared in the children's section of a local newspaper; she began keeping a journal at 11.

Q 05/05

Which private women's college in Massachusetts did Plath attend from 1950?

A) Smith

B) Wellesley

C) Mount Holyoke

D) Radcliffe

Answer · why

A) Smith

Smith awarded her a summa cum laude degree in 1955, two years after a breakdown and suicide attempt had interrupted her studies.