Lesson 4.2.2.4

4.2.2.4 Top Girls by Caryl Churchill Quiz: AQA English Literature A, Unit 2

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson 4.2.2.4, Top Girls by Caryl Churchill: 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 Caryl Churchill's Top Girls first performed?

    • 1994
    • 1963
    • 2001
    • 1982

  2. Who is the central character of Top Girls?

    • Joyce
    • Nell
    • Marlene
    • Angie

  3. What is the name of the employment agency in the play?

    • Global Stars
    • Top Girls
    • Bright Future
    • Empire Agency

  4. Which opening scene features a dinner party with historical women?

    • A factory tour in which visitors are shown the machines and the workers at their benches
    • A military parade through the streets of the capital, watched by crowds of citizens
    • A royal banquet at which the monarch greets the foreign envoys and their families
    • Marlene's celebration dinner

  5. Which historical or legendary women are included at the dinner?

    • Mary Shelley and Emily Bronte
    • Cleopatra and Helen of Troy
    • Queen Victoria and Florence Nightingale
    • Pope Joan and Lady Nijo

  6. Which painting provides the character Dull Gret?

    • Pieter Bruegel's Dulle Griet
    • The Mona Lisa, the portrait by Leonardo da Vinci hung in the Louvre in Paris
    • The Night Watch, the group portrait by Rembrandt that shows a company of militia
    • Guernica, the mural by Pablo Picasso that responds to the bombing of a Spanish town

  7. Which concept does the opening dinner party establish?

    • A political rally in which the guests address a crowd and call for votes for their party
    • A musical comedy routine with songs and dances performed by the guests at the table
    • A military strategy session in which the guests plan the movements of their armies
    • A discussion of women's achievements and suffering across time

  8. Which contemporary issue does Top Girls address?

    • The building of new railways across the country, which linked the cities and towns
    • The price of coal in northern England, which had risen sharply in the years before
    • The manufacture of cars in the factories of the Midlands and their export overseas
    • Women's ambition and the cost of success in a male world

  9. Which term describes the play's structure of shifting between past and present?

    • Non-linear structure
    • Strict unity of place
    • Monologue
    • Chorus commentary only

  10. Which relationship in the play highlights the personal costs of Marlene's ambition?

    • Marlene and a royal patron
    • Marlene and her sister Joyce
    • Marlene and a foreign king
    • Marlene and a military general

  11. What is the significance of the play's use of women from history?

    • It shows women's achievements have often been overlooked
    • It places the play in the Middle Ages only
    • It proves all women are heroines
    • It shows women were never important in history

  12. Which feature of Churchill's theatre is evident in the play's staging of many women?

    • All-male cast
    • Female-led ensemble
    • Operatic chorus
    • Silent film techniques

  13. Which term describes a play that critiques social and economic change?

    • Pastoral comedy
    • Masque
    • Court tragedy
    • Social drama

  14. Evaluate: how does the dinner scene shape the audience's view of Marlene?

    • It shows her success as an achievement that also cuts her off from others
    • It shows her as a passive character who drifts through the evening without any ambition
    • It shows her as irrelevant to the rest of the play, appearing only briefly on stage
    • It shows her as a villain without any motive, who acts simply out of cruelty alone

  15. Which idea does Churchill's play question?

    • Whether women can have career success without sacrifice
    • Whether trade should be free from all tariffs and taxes imposed by the government
    • Whether the Queen should abdicate in favour of her son and heir to the throne
    • Whether theatre should be censored by a committee appointed by the Lord Chamberlain

  16. Which term describes a play's use of historical figures to comment on the present?

    • Historical allegory
    • Melodrama, a form that uses heightened emotion and sensational plot to move audiences
    • Pastoral, a form that idealises the countryside and the lives of shepherds and farmers
    • Realism, a mode that depicts ordinary life in close detail and in a plain style

  17. What is the significance of the 1980s setting of Top Girls?

    • It reflects a period of royal absolutism in which the monarch held supreme power
    • It reflects Thatcherite values of enterprise and competition
    • It reflects the medieval feudal system, with lords, vassals and the rights of serfs
    • It reflects the Victorian age of exploration, when expeditions charted distant lands

  18. Which theme connects the play's dinner party with the employment agency?

    • Agricultural labour, in which workers tend the fields and harvest crops each season
    • Women's position in work and society across time
    • Naval discipline, in which sailors obey strict orders and the chain of command at sea
    • Religious conversion, in which a character abandons one faith for another entirely

  19. Which contextual idea is central to the play's engagement with the 1980s?

    • Enterprise culture and the pressures on women
    • The rise of the Empire, which brought new colonies and trade routes under British rule
    • The First World War armistice, which brought the fighting in Europe to an end
    • The Reformation, which divided the churches of Europe and reshaped religious life

  20. Who is Lady Nijo among the dinner guests?

    • A Roman empress who ruled alongside her husband and governed the city in his absence
    • A Parisian painter who lived in Montmartre and exhibited her work in the salons
    • A Japanese court lady and writer
    • A Victorian explorer who travelled alone across Asia and wrote accounts of her journeys

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