Lesson 4.2.1.10

4.2.1.10 The First Casualty by Ben Elton Quiz: AQA English Literature A, Unit 2

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson 4.2.1.10, The First Casualty by Ben Elton: 20 multiple choice questions for the AQA English Literature A (7712), Unit 2: Texts in shared contexts, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. The title of Ben Elton's The First Casualty comes from a phrase attributed to which American politician?

    • Theodore Roosevelt
    • Woodrow Wilson
    • Henry Cabot Lodge
    • Hiram Johnson

  2. According to the attributed phrase, what is the first casualty when war comes?

    • Youth
    • Peace
    • Truth
    • Trade

  3. In what year was Ben Elton's The First Casualty published?

    • 1985
    • 2002
    • 1961
    • 1979

  4. Ben Elton is best known as a co-writer of which British comedy series?

    • Fawlty Towers
    • Porridge
    • Dad's Army
    • Blackadder

  5. What does the attributed phrase suggest about official war reporting?

    • Truth is unimportant to governments in peacetime, so they never bother with it at all
    • Propaganda and censorship can distort the truth early in a conflict
    • Newspapers always print accurate casualty lists, so readers can trust official figures
    • War is won by correspondents writing home rather than by the soldiers who fight it

  6. What term describes government messages designed to shape public opinion during WW1?

    • Diplomacy
    • Blockade
    • Mobilisation
    • Propaganda

  7. Which poster, asking men to enlist, is most associated with British recruitment in 1914?

    • Dig for Victory
    • Keep Calm and Carry On
    • Careless Talk Costs Lives
    • Your Country Needs You

  8. Which 1914 law gave the British government powers to control the press and information?

    • Representation of the People Act
    • Official Secrets Act of 1989
    • Defence of the Realm Act
    • Parliament Act

  9. A war novel explores the gap between official accounts and soldiers' experience. Which technique best shows this gap?

    • Caesura
    • Onomatopoeia
    • Alliteration
    • Dramatic irony

  10. Why might a comic writer choose to address serious war themes?

    • Comedy removes the need for any historical detail
    • Humour can expose hypocrisy and official deceit
    • Comedy replaces the need for characterisation
    • Comedy proves the war had no victims

  11. Which risk does a comic treatment of war most commonly run?

    • Trivialising real suffering
    • Using only documentary evidence
    • Writing without any dialogue
    • Ignoring the political context entirely

  12. Evaluate: which statement best describes truth as a theme in a novel about war?

    • Truth is always simply revealed by the final chapter, which settles every dispute
    • Truth is contested between official narratives and personal experience
    • Truth is irrelevant once the armistice is signed and the fighting formally ends
    • Truth is only found in military maps, reports and the official records of commanders

  13. What is a satirical novel?

    • A factual history of a battle that records the timings and casualties of each attack
    • A poem written in strict sonnet form that celebrates the beauty of the countryside
    • A work that uses irony and ridicule to criticise society or institutions
    • A diary kept by a soldier that records the daily routine of life in the trenches

  14. Which feature of a propaganda poster most often aims to shape public emotion?

    • Detailed statistics on casualties
    • Technical diagrams of weapons
    • Emotive imagery and direct appeal
    • Lists of railway timetables

  15. A writer chooses a title that quotes a famous saying. What is the most likely effect?

    • It removes the need for any plot by telling the reader the outcome in advance
    • It guarantees a happy ending in which every character is reunited at the end
    • It frames the text through an established idea the reader can test
    • It signals the novel is a textbook that explains the history of the period in detail

  16. Which concept describes a character's mistaken belief that official news is accurate?

    • Metonymy, the use of a related word to stand for the thing being described
    • Synecdoche, the use of a part of something to represent the whole of it
    • Anaphora, the repetition of a word or phrase at the start of successive clauses
    • Dramatic irony

  17. Which 1917 event made the United States' entry into WW1 more likely?

    • The Zimmermann Telegram
    • The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
    • The Battle of Cambrai
    • The fall of the Tsar in 1905

  18. Which broader idea connects the phrase about truth and the modern media?

    • Newspapers were banned in all wars after 1918, so the press played no later role
    • Modern media has no link to war, since reporting has changed entirely since 1918
    • Truth is only tested in peacetime politics, not during periods of armed conflict
    • Propaganda and misinformation remain central concerns in later war writing

  19. Which statement best explains why a writer 'looks back' on WW1 in later fiction?

    • To prove the war had no impact on society and that its effects were trivial
    • To replace historical sources with fiction that invents its own version of events
    • To reassess the war's legacy with a later understanding of its consequences
    • To record the war in real time for readers at the front line as it happened

  20. Which 1918 agreement brought the fighting on the Western Front to an end?

    • The Armistice of 11 November 1918
    • The Munich Agreement
    • The Locarno Pact
    • The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk

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