Lesson 4.2.2.9

4.2.2.9 Spies by Michael Frayn Quiz: AQA English Literature A, Unit 2

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson 4.2.2.9, Spies by Michael Frayn: 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 Michael Frayn's Spies published?

    • 2002
    • 1985
    • 1948
    • 1962

  2. Who wrote the play Noises Off, a comedy by Michael Frayn?

    • Peter Whelan
    • Caryl Churchill
    • Tennessee Williams
    • Michael Frayn

  3. Which of Frayn's plays explores physics and moral responsibility?

    • Journey's End
    • Oh! What a Lovely War
    • Top Girls
    • Copenhagen

  4. What is the central concern of Spies as a novel?

    • Victorian industrial growth, including the building of mills, railways and new towns
    • Naval tactics in the Pacific, including the battles fought between fleets of carriers
    • Medieval chivalry, including the codes of knights, the tournaments and the courts of love
    • Childhood memory and the discovery of hidden truths

  5. Which period is the novel's historical background?

    • The Second World War
    • The Napoleonic Wars
    • The Wars of the Roses
    • The Crimean War

  6. Which theme of the novel links childhood with the wider historical period?

    • The effect of war on ordinary lives and memory
    • The rise of banking, which concentrated capital in the hands of a few great institutions
    • The development of railways, which linked the towns and transformed travel in the country
    • Medieval guilds, which regulated the trades of craftsmen in the towns of the kingdom

  7. Which concept describes a child's view of adult secrets?

    • Pastoral harmony, in which people live at peace with nature and each other in the fields
    • Innocence confronted with knowledge
    • Epic heroism, in which a single warrior performs great deeds against overwhelming odds
    • Classical balance, in which opposing forces are set in a formal and symmetrical order

  8. Which narrative technique is central to a novel that looks back on childhood?

    • Epistolary exchange
    • Retrospective narration
    • Ballad refrain
    • Dramatic chorus

  9. Which theme of Spies connects with the idea of a spy?

    • Secrecy and the reliability of memory
    • Parliamentary procedure, including the rules that govern debate, voting and committees
    • Industrial output, measured in tonnes of iron and coal produced by the mines and mills
    • Naval supremacy, in which the fleet of the kingdom held control of the seas for centuries

  10. Which concept does a child's game of spies allude to in the novel?

    • Military strategy, including the planning of campaigns, the placing of troops and supplies
    • Economic planning, including the setting of targets for production and the allocation of goods
    • Playful imitation of adult secrecy
    • Legal procedure, including the rules of evidence, the examination of witnesses and the verdict

  11. Evaluate: how does a childhood perspective change a reader's view of the war?

    • It removes the war from the story, so that the events of the period are never mentioned
    • It shows the war through the eyes of someone who did not fully understand it
    • It shows the war with complete adult clarity, leaving no part of the events unexplained
    • It shows the war as a comedy only, with every event played for light and lively laughs

  12. Which term describes the way a text's meaning develops through layered memories?

    • Layering
    • Stanza form
    • Anaphora
    • Refrain

  13. Which contextual feature of the Second World War does the novel's childhood setting reflect?

    • Naval trade convoys in the Atlantic, which carried food and supplies across the ocean
    • Civilian life under wartime secrecy and rumour
    • Parliamentary debate on taxation, in which members argued over the rates of income tax
    • Ancient warfare in Greece, including the phalanx, the hoplites and the city-state armies

  14. Which concept links Spies to other Option B novels?

    • Post-war reflection on the war's legacy
    • Medieval romance, in which knights rode out in search of adventure and the love of ladies
    • Victorian melodrama, in which villains threaten innocent heroines in the London streets
    • Restoration comedy, in which witty couples pursue love and fortune in fashionable circles

  15. Which term describes a novel's engagement with the nature of truth and memory?

    • Epic
    • Metafiction
    • Pastoral
    • Naturalism

  16. What does a title like Spies suggest about the novel's theme?

    • Naval warfare, including the planning of attacks by fleets against enemy harbours at sea
    • Religious conversion, in which a character abandons an old faith and embraces a new creed
    • Industrial progress, including the growth of factories, railways and new mining towns
    • Concealment and the reading of other people's secrets

  17. Which broader post-war concern is reflected in the novel's attention to secrecy?

    • The end of monarchy
    • The complicated legacy of wartime secrets
    • The growth of the railway network
    • The spread of the printing press

  18. Which feature of Frayn's prose helps convey a child's perception?

    • Abstract philosophical argument that develops ideas through long chains of reasoning
    • Long Latin quotations that are set in italic type and translated in the notes at the end
    • Attention to small, precise sensory detail
    • Strict legal terms that define each word precisely as it would be used in a court of law

  19. In what year was Copenhagen, Frayn's drama about two physicists, first staged?

    • 1982
    • 2002
    • 1998
    • 1966

  20. Which two physicists are at the centre of Frayn's play Copenhagen?

    • Einstein and Planck
    • Newton and Hooke
    • Heisenberg and Bohr
    • Curie and Rutherford

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