Lesson 4.2.1.22

4.2.1.22 The Oxford Book of War Poetry, ed. Jon Stallworthy Quiz: AQA English Literature A, Unit 2

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson 4.2.1.22, The Oxford Book of War Poetry, ed. Jon Stallworthy: 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. Who edited The Oxford Book of War Poetry in the set list?

    • George Walter
    • Brian Gardner
    • Catherine Reilly
    • Jon Stallworthy

  2. What kind of book is an Oxford anthology in literary study?

    • A scholarly collection of selected works
    • A catalogue of battles that lists each engagement, its date, its place and its outcome
    • A tutorial guide for schools that explains the poems line by line for each class
    • A government census that records the population and occupations of each town and village

  3. Which war poet did Jon Stallworthy write a major biography of?

    • Siegfried Sassoon
    • Isaac Rosenberg
    • Wilfred Owen
    • Rupert Brooke

  4. What is the value of a war poetry anthology that spans more than one conflict?

    • It allows comparison of war writing across different conflicts
    • It focuses only on comic verse written by soldiers to amuse one another in camp
    • It limits study to a single year, so that the reader sees only one moment in history
    • It excludes all historical material and focuses only on the imagined lives of poets

  5. Which WW1 theme is most widely anthologised?

    • Harvest festivals, celebrated in villages by farmers and their families each autumn
    • Death and loss in the trenches
    • Urban planning, including the design of streets, parks and housing for city dwellers
    • Naval navigation, including the use of charts, compasses and the stars at sea

  6. Which poem by John McCrae is one of the most famous WW1 lyrics?

    • Dulce et Decorum Est
    • Suicide in the Trenches
    • The Soldier
    • In Flanders Fields

  7. Why do anthology editors include poems of varying tone?

    • To suggest a single emotional message
    • To make the collection shorter
    • To avoid difficult subjects
    • To reflect the variety of responses to the war

  8. Which phrase describes poems that convey the physical reality of combat?

    • Comic verse
    • Visceral war poetry
    • Courtly love poem
    • Pastoral lyric

  9. Evaluate: what does a war poetry anthology reveal about changing attitudes to war?

    • A preference for prose over poetry, since the anthology's readers found verse too hard
    • A steady consensus in favour of war, with every poet expressing the same views
    • A decline in poetic quality over time, as later poets lost the skill of earlier writers
    • Shifts from patriotic idealism to critical realism

  10. Which Owen poem uses the Horace phrase ironically to challenge patriotic myth?

    • The Soldier
    • Dulce et Decorum Est
    • In Flanders Fields
    • Break of Day in the Trenches

  11. Which term describes the critical reading of a poem in its historical setting?

    • Metrical scansion
    • Phonetic transcription
    • Historicist reading
    • Structural analysis

  12. Which feature of war poetry anthologies helps students compare texts?

    • Random ordering with no notes
    • Omission of all poet biographies
    • Exclusion of all titles
    • Clear dating and context for each poem

  13. Which poem begins with the question "What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?"

    • Futility
    • Anthem for Doomed Youth
    • Strange Meeting
    • Dulce et Decorum Est

  14. Which poet's poem "Suicide in the Trenches" criticises the waste of young lives?

    • Rupert Brooke, the idealistic poet whose war sonnets were published in 1915
    • Siegfried Sassoon
    • Edward Thomas, the Welsh-born poet who was killed on the Western Front in 1917
    • John McCrae, the Canadian doctor whose lyric In Flanders Fields became famous

  15. Which poem by Isaac Rosenberg depicts a dawn in the trenches?

    • Dulce et Decorum Est, the poem by Wilfred Owen about a gas attack on a column
    • Break of Day in the Trenches
    • In Flanders Fields, the lyric by John McCrae about poppies growing over the graves
    • The Soldier, the sonnet by Rupert Brooke that opens with the line If I should die

  16. Which poetic device is used in Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth" to suggest funeral ritual?

    • Onomatopoeia of gunfire, which imitates the sounds of rifles and shells in the line
    • Refrain of a nursery rhyme, repeated at the close of each stanza of the poem
    • Metaphor drawn from funeral customs
    • Anaphora of royal names, in which each stanza opens with the title of a monarch

  17. Which idea does a poetry anthology illustrate about literature and war?

    • Literature replaces military history, so that military records are no longer needed
    • Literature has no place in war, since the only truths are those of the battlefield
    • Literature is only written after victory, when the nation can afford to look back
    • Literature records and interprets the experience of conflict

  18. What is the main value of editorial notes in an anthology?

    • They list only the poets' birthdays and the places where each poet was born
    • They help readers understand context and interpretation
    • They replace the poems themselves, so the reader need not read the verse at all
    • They prove the editor's military rank and record the editor's service in the war

  19. Which comparison would a student make when reading across a war poetry anthology?

    • How many soldiers were paid in gold during each campaign on the Western Front
    • Which battle in the book had the largest number of ships engaged on each side
    • Different writers' responses to the same conflict, compared side by side
    • Which country signed the armistice first, and which followed on the next day

  20. Which term describes first-hand testimony of combat by someone who was there?

    • Official gazette
    • Government statistic
    • Secondary commentary
    • Eyewitness testimony

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