Lesson T1.1.2

T1.1.2 Pre-1914 English literature: prose, poetry and drama Quiz: KS3 English, Unit 1

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson T1.1.2, Pre-1914 English literature: prose, poetry and drama: 20 multiple choice questions for the KS3 English (National Curriculum), Unit 1: Reading, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. Which novel by Charles Dickens follows an orphan who falls in with a gang of pickpockets in London?

    • Pride and Prejudice, a novel by Jane Austen about the marriage prospects of five sisters
    • Oliver Twist, a novel about a poor orphan in nineteenth-century London
    • Frankenstein, a novel by Mary Shelley about a scientist who builds a living creature
    • Jane Eyre, a novel by Charlotte Bronte about a governess at Thornfield Hall

  2. Which poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley describes a broken statue lying in a desert?

    • The Tyger, which asks what immortal hand could create a fearsome and beautiful animal
    • Kubla Khan, which describes a mysterious palace built in a fertile valley by a ruler
    • Ozymandias, which describes a ruined statue and the arrogance of a fallen king
    • Daffodils, which describes a walker who sees a great host of flowers beside a lake

  3. In William Blake's poem 'The Tyger', which question is repeatedly asked?

    • Why do the flowers wither so quickly in the heat of the summer sun?
    • Who will carry the letter across the sea to the distant island?
    • When will the bells ring out to mark the end of a long winter?
    • What immortal hand or eye could frame the tiger's fearful symmetry?

  4. Which novel by Emily Bronte is set on the Yorkshire moors and centres on the stormy relationship of Cathy and Heathcliff?

    • Tess of the d'Urbervilles, a novel about a young woman's tragedy in the rural county of Wessex
    • Great Expectations, a novel about a boy who receives money from an unknown benefactor
    • Wuthering Heights, a novel about a passionate and destructive love on the Yorkshire moors
    • Middlemarch, a novel about the social life of a town and an idealistic doctor's marriage

  5. Which Jane Austen novel features a clever young woman who arranges matches for her friends in a village?

    • Persuasion, about a woman who meets her former fiance again after several years apart
    • Emma, about a wealthy young woman who arranges matches for her friends in a village
    • Sense and Sensibility, about two sisters with contrasting temperaments and romantic experiences
    • Northanger Abbey, about a young woman who reads Gothic novels and imagines dangers around her

  6. What does 'pre-1914' mean when describing a literary text?

    • Written before 1939, the year the Second World War began in Europe
    • Written before 1901, the year Queen Victoria died at the end of her reign
    • Written before 1914, the year the First World War began
    • Written before 1918, the year the First World War ended in Europe

  7. A Victorian novel was serialised in a magazine. What does this mean?

    • It was published in regular instalments over a period of time
    • It was translated into several languages at exactly the same moment
    • It was printed with illustrations on every single page of the book
    • It was performed on stage in a theatre before it was ever printed as a book

  8. A poem with a regular rhythm describes a lone walker in the hills. Which Romantic theme is most likely?

    • The rules of trade in busy Victorian ports and the cargo they carry
    • A debate about how a national government should raise money through taxes
    • A close connection between human feeling and the natural world
    • Detailed scientific measurements of the surface of the moon and its craters

  9. Why would Dickens's descriptions of urban poverty have been topical to readers in 1850?

    • Poverty had been completely eliminated by government action in the years before 1850
    • Most people in 1850 lived on remote farms and had little contact with any large city
    • Industrial cities were growing fast, and many families lived in crowded, poor conditions
    • Cities had been abandoned by their populations after a great fire destroyed them in 1800

  10. Great Expectations opens with Pip meeting an escaped convict in a graveyard. What is this opening most likely to do?

    • Create suspense and draw the reader in with a dramatic and frightening situation
    • Describe a happy family celebrating a holiday together in the countryside
    • Explain the author's views on the expansion of the British railway network
    • List the characters who will appear in the later chapters of the novel in order

  11. Which feature of Frankenstein helps create a sense of fear?

    • Clear explanations of the chemistry used in a laboratory on almost every page
    • Long lists of market goods bought by a family in a busy and cheerful city
    • Bright sunny meadows, cheerful picnics and friendly village festivals in the summer
    • Dark settings, isolation and the horrifying creation of a scientist who abandons it

  12. A student reads a formal poem from 1820 and a free verse poem from 2010. Which difference is most likely?

    • The 1820 poem may use more formal language and regular rhythm than the free verse poem
    • The 1820 poem is always longer than any modern poem because printing was costly
    • The 2010 poem must use rhyme, while the 1820 poem can never use rhyme at all
    • Both poems use identical vocabulary, because English has not changed since 1800

  13. Why do many pre-1914 texts contain vocabulary and sentence patterns that modern readers may find unfamiliar?

    • Publishers before 1914 were legally forbidden from using the everyday words of ordinary people
    • Dictionaries did not exist before 1914, so writers had to invent every word they used
    • Earlier authors deliberately avoided any word that a modern reader would be able to recognise
    • English has changed over time, so words and sentence patterns have shifted in meaning and use

  14. Frankenstein is often read as a warning about which theme?

    • The importance of keeping every family's farm inside a single and unchanging village boundary
    • The pleasure of travelling across the Arctic in a ship with a well-stocked library
    • The dangers of unchecked ambition and of creating life without taking responsibility for it
    • The benefits of building large laboratories that provide free medicine to every household

  15. Which statement best describes the Romantic poets' attitude to nature?

    • They regarded nature as a resource to be measured, divided and controlled by scientists
    • They saw nature as a source of emotion, inspiration and a deep spiritual experience
    • They wrote almost exclusively about machines and factories rather than the countryside
    • They believed nature was unimportant compared with the rules of city trade and commerce

  16. Why is the first-person narration of Jane Eyre significant?

    • It lets the reader see events through Jane's own thoughts, feelings and judgements
    • It presents events through a neutral narrator who never shows the inner thoughts of anyone
    • It means the author speaks directly to readers as a historian reporting real events
    • It means the story is told by an animal that watches all the human characters closely

  17. What does 'episodic' mean when a reviewer describes a Dickens novel?

    • Set in one room with only three characters over a single day of action
    • Written entirely as letters exchanged between two families over many years
    • Containing no dialogue, and told only through the narrator's long descriptions
    • Made up of separate episodes or incidents, often first published in instalments

  18. Frankenstein is told partly through letters written by Walton. What is the effect of this layered narration?

    • The reader hears only the monster's own words, with no narrator at all to frame the story
    • The letters were written after the monster's death, in a future year the reader never learns
    • The story is told at a distance through several narrators, so events are seen from different viewpoints
    • The letters were written by the novel's publisher to advertise the book to new readers

  19. Which statement about the Victorian novel is most accurate?

    • Victorian novels were usually published only as expensive handwritten copies for libraries
    • Many Victorian novels were published in monthly or weekly parts, reaching wide audiences
    • Victorian novels were almost never read by anyone outside the wealthy upper classes
    • Victorian novels avoided mentioning social problems such as poverty, disease and crime

  20. A reader notices that an 1850s novel uses the words 'thee' and 'thou'. What does this suggest?

    • The novel was written in a foreign language and translated badly into English
    • The novel was a poem printed as prose to save space on the page
    • Older forms of pronouns that were more common in earlier English than in modern speech
    • The author was a child who had not yet learned the modern pronouns of English

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