Lesson 4.2.2.10

4.2.2.10 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey Quiz: AQA English Literature A, Unit 2

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson 4.2.2.10, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey: 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. In what year was Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest published?

    • 1985
    • 1975
    • 1948
    • 1962

  2. Who narrates One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

    • Nurse Ratched
    • Randle McMurphy
    • Billy Bibbit
    • Chief Bromden

  3. Who is the rebellious new patient who challenges the ward's rules?

    • Cheswick
    • Scanlon
    • Dale Harding
    • Randle McMurphy

  4. Who is the ward's authoritarian head nurse?

    • Nurse Flinn
    • Aunt Lydia
    • Mrs Mays
    • Nurse Ratched

  5. Where is the novel set?

    • A naval base in Hawaii, where sailors wait for orders to sail to the Pacific islands
    • A London bank, where clerks record the accounts of merchants and investors each day
    • A Texan cattle ranch, where cowboys drive the herds across the open plains to market
    • A psychiatric hospital ward in Oregon

  6. What does the Combine represent in Chief Bromden's perception?

    • A naval fleet, which Bromden imagines patrolling the coast beyond the hospital walls
    • A rival hospital, which competes with the ward for patients and government funding
    • A brand of cigarettes, which Bromden sees advertised on the walls of the ward each day
    • A vast system of control and conformity

  7. What is the central conflict of the novel?

    • A dispute over hospital funding, in which the ward's budget is cut by the state
    • A rivalry between doctors, who compete for promotion and the praise of the board
    • A naval battle at sea, which the patients watch from the windows of the hospital
    • The struggle between individual freedom and institutional control

  8. Which term describes a narrator whose perception is distorted by illness or trauma?

    • Chorus
    • Unreliable narrator
    • Omniscient narrator
    • Epistolary narrator

  9. Which theme does the novel explore through its psychiatric setting?

    • Naval discipline, in which officers and crew are bound by strict rules at sea
    • Imperial expansion, in which armies and traders extend the empire into distant lands
    • Industrial labour, in which workers are paid by the hour to operate machines in factories
    • Control and the definition of sanity

  10. Which character is Chief Bromden's close friend and foil in the ward?

    • Harding
    • Scanlon
    • Randle McMurphy
    • Doctor Spivey

  11. What is the outcome for McMurphy at the novel's end?

    • He escapes to Mexico
    • He becomes head nurse
    • He is lobotomised by the staff
    • He is released to a happy life

  12. Which 1975 film adaptation won five Academy Awards?

    • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
    • The Godfather, the 1972 crime drama about an Italian-American family in New York
    • Casablanca, the 1942 romance set in North Africa during the Second World War
    • Gone with the Wind, the 1939 epic set in the American South during the Civil War

  13. Which broad 1960s context does the novel reflect?

    • Anxiety about conformity and institutional power
    • Imperial trade, in which goods from the colonies flowed into the ports of Britain
    • Naval expansion, in which the fleet was enlarged to protect the nation's trade routes
    • Agricultural reform, in which new methods of farming were introduced to the countryside

  14. Which concept describes the novel's critique of institutions that control people?

    • Classical balance, in which opposing forces are set in a formal and symmetrical order
    • Pastoral idealism, in which rural life is shown as simple, honest and free from strife
    • Institutional critique
    • Gothic sublime, in which vast and frightening landscapes stir awe and terror in the viewer

  15. Evaluate: why does the narrator's perspective matter for the reader's understanding of McMurphy?

    • It removes all sense of McMurphy's character, leaving only a blank and empty outline
    • It presents McMurphy as a government official who visits the ward to inspect its rules
    • It shows McMurphy through the eyes of a mind shaped by fear and perception
    • It shows McMurphy with complete objectivity, recording only what can be seen and proven

  16. Which term describes the novel's portrayal of a group of people excluded from normal society?

    • Assimilation
    • Patronage
    • Colonisation
    • Marginalisation

  17. Which Option B theme does the novel share with Top Girls and A Streetcar?

    • Power, gender and the regulation of behaviour
    • Naval strategy, including the planning of fleet movements and the tactics of sea battles
    • Agricultural economy, including the production of grain, the rents paid by tenants and the prices
    • Ancient philosophy, including the arguments of Plato and Aristotle on virtue and the state

  18. What does the novel suggest about rebellion?

    • Rebellion has no social meaning, because individuals cannot change the world around them
    • Rebellion leads to automatic victory, and the rebels are always rewarded for their defiance
    • Rebellion carries personal cost but matters for dignity
    • Rebellion is always pointless, since the institution always wins in the end and crushes it

  19. Which concept describes a character who inspires others to resist authority?

    • Neutral bystander
    • Dutiful servant
    • Charismatic rebel
    • Silent observer

  20. Which term describes the regime of rules and routines in the ward?

    • Free association, in which patients speak freely about whatever comes into their minds
    • Institutional routine
    • Improvisation, in which the staff and patients invent new ways of working day by day
    • Anarchy, in which the ward has no rules and every patient does as he pleases at will

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