The story of Pyramus and Thisbe most closely resembles which famous couple?

• A. Tristan and Isolde
• B. Cleopatra and Antony
• C. Romeo and Juliet
• D. Beauty and the Beast

Answer: (C)

The pattern being tested is identifying a story about lovers whose relationship is forbidden or difficult, and whose intense love ends in tragedy due to misfortune or miscommunication. In Pyramus and Thisbe, two young lovers are kept apart by a wall and the circumstances around them, and a cascade of misunderstandings leads to both of them dying. That same dramatic arc appears most clearly in Romeo and Juliet: two teenagers from families at odds fall for each other, marry in secret, and a series of hasty decisions and miscommunications drives the plot toward a fatal conclusion.

The other pairs don’t fit as closely. Tristan and Isolde is a tragic romance with fate and complex choices but centers on a different kind of entanglement; Cleopatra and Antony mixes romance with political tragedy; Beauty and the Beast is a fairy-tale romance with transformation and hope rather than a doomed, miscommunicated ending.