Lesson Y8-U04-L04

Y8-U04-L04 Slums, Disease and Public Health Quiz: KS3 History, Unit 10

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson Y8-U04-L04, Slums, Disease and Public Health: 20 multiple choice questions for the KS3 History (National Curriculum), Unit 10: Year 8: Industrial Revolution, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. What is a 'slum'?

    • A quiet village in the countryside where farmers grew their own crops
    • A new street of well-built houses with gardens for the factory owners
    • A crowded, run-down area of cheap housing in a town, often dirty and unhealthy
    • A large public park where factory workers relaxed on their days off

  2. What does 'sanitation' mean?

    • The clean removal of dirt, sewage and waste so that people stay healthy
    • The supply of fresh food to the crowded streets of the new industrial towns
    • The building of public parks for families to rest in on Sundays
    • The cleaning of factory machines to keep them running smoothly and quietly

  3. What was cholera?

    • A fever caused by breathing coal smoke from the steam engines
    • A condition caused by working too long in the cold, damp mines
    • A deadly disease caught from dirty water that caused severe sickness
    • A disease spread by rats that lived in the cellars of the factory mills

  4. What is an 'epidemic'?

    • A disease spreading quickly through many people at the same time
    • A type of housing built for workers near the factories and mills
    • A type of machine that was used to clean the streets of sewage
    • A law that forced the poor to live in one crowded district of a city

  5. How much did Manchester's population grow between 1772 and 1851?

    • From about 250,000 people to about 350,000 people
    • From about 25,000 people to about 35,000 people
    • From about 25,000 people to over 350,000 people
    • From about 2,500 people to about 35,000 people

  6. What were 'back-to-back' houses?

    • Houses set well apart from each other along wide tree-lined streets
    • Houses with two floors, one for living and one for working in a mill
    • Houses that shared walls on three sides, with no garden and little air or light
    • Houses built in pairs with a shared garden at the back for each family

  7. About how many families might share one water tap on a slum street?

    • About five families
    • Two or three families
    • Around 500 families
    • Up to 50 to 100 families

  8. What was a privy in an industrial slum?

    • A toilet, often shared by dozens of families in a court
    • A tap that supplied clean drinking water to one family
    • An underground drain built to carry sewage away from the street
    • A pit in which water was stored near the mill for washing machines

  9. Why were cesspits next to wells so dangerous?

    • The cesspits were too deep, so the wells dried up and families had no water
    • Human waste near drinking water could pass disease straight into the water people drank
    • Cesspits attracted rats that carried disease into the homes of the factory owners
    • Wells were used to store coal, which gave off gas that poisoned the water

  10. What did Edwin Chadwick's 1842 report show?

    • How many factories were built in each town between 1800 and 1842
    • How many children worked in each mill and how many were in school
    • How much money each factory owner paid to the workers each week, including the fines for lateness and talking
    • How long people lived in different towns, showing the worst factory towns were the deadliest

  11. Roughly how old were workers in the worst factory towns when they died?

    • Before they were 20
    • Before they were 60
    • Before they were 70
    • Before they were 40

  12. Why did cholera finally push the government to act on the towns?

    • It killed rich people as well as poor, so it frightened the government into change
    • It was a disease only found among the poor, so the government ignored it
    • It was spread by the government's own factories, which forced it to act
    • It caused so many deaths that the workers were paid higher wages by law

  13. How many people did the 1848-49 cholera epidemic kill in England and Wales?

    • Around 5 million
    • Over 50,000
    • Around 500
    • Around 5,000

  14. In which years did cholera return to Britain?

    • 1901, 1918 and 1939
    • 1800-01, 1815 and 1820
    • 1831-32, 1848-49 and 1854
    • 1760, 1790 and 1812

  15. A student says the slums were deadly mainly because the houses were too small. Which explanation is better?

    • The houses were too close to the factory, so workers breathed in coal smoke
    • The houses had no roofs, so the rain washed disease into every room
    • Waste and drinking water were not kept apart, so disease spread through the water supply
    • The houses were built on swamps, so families were soaked in water every day

  16. A street has one tap for 60 families. What is the most likely result if the water is infected?

    • The factory owners would be the only people who could be infected
    • The whole street could catch the disease
    • No one would catch the disease because the tap was used only for cooking
    • Only the families who live nearest to the mill would become ill

  17. Which chain of reasons best explains early death in the industrial towns?

    • Long factory hours made workers so tired that they gave up eating food altogether
    • Overcrowding and no sanitation let waste contaminate drinking water, which spread disease and early death
    • Workers preferred the countryside, so they were unwilling to work in towns where the air was too thick
    • Factory machines were too quiet, so workers could not hear the warnings of danger

  18. Why did towns grow so quickly during the industrial period?

    • The government ordered every family to move to a new town for their health
    • Farmers gave up their land so that the workers could build homes on it
    • Factories drew workers who had to live near the mills, so housing was packed in quickly
    • Canals were built to carry families to towns where the rent was lower

  19. Which statement best describes how industrial housing was built?

    • Builders built cheap, crowded houses for profit and speed rather than for health
    • Builders spent large sums of money to make houses healthy and spacious for every family
    • Builders were forbidden by law from putting more than one family in each house
    • Builders built houses with large gardens so that workers could grow their own food

  20. Which statement describes the problem of the shared privy best?

    • The privies were so clean that they were used as a place for families to wash
    • Dozens of families shared one pit, so waste overflowed into the ground and the water
    • The privies were built on the roofs of the houses so that waste ran off
    • Each family had a private toilet connected to a deep underground sewer system

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