GCSEEnglish LiteratureAQAExam Questions4. The Poetry AnthologyPower & Conflict

Power & Conflict (AQA GCSE English Literature): Exam Questions

Exam code: 8702

13 hours286 questions

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Power & Conflict

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11 mark

What does the word “charter’d” suggest about the streets and the Thames?

  • They are free and uncontrolled.

  • They are privately owned and restricted.

  • They are ancient and unchanged.

  • They are peaceful and natural.

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21 mark

What does the repetition of “mark” in stanza 1 convey?

  • The narrator is easily and regularly distracted.

  • People are proud of their identity.

  • Everyone carries visible signs of suffering.

  • Only some individuals are affected.

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31 mark

What are the “mind-forg’d manacles” a metaphor for?

  • soldiers’ weapons in war

  • shackles created by oppression

  • the chains of prison inmates

  • the fences of the city’s streets

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41 mark

Whose cries are said to “appall” the church?

  • beggars in the market

  • children working as chimney-sweepers

  • sailors leaving the docks after work

  • prisoners awaiting trial out in the streets

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51 mark

What does “black’ning Church” suggest?

  • the church supporting the poor and struggling

  • a building closed for the night

  • a place of comfort and light

  • the walls stained by pollution and hypocrisy

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61 mark

What does the image of blood on palace walls criticise?

  • the people for refusing to rebel

  • the beauty and glamour of London’s buildings

  • the soldiers and generals for being weak

  • the monarchy and elite for causing wars

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71 mark

What is the central theme of London?

  • the glory of the city’s history and heritage

  • the beauty of nature and light in the capital

  • the suffering caused by power and oppression

  • The joy of family life in the city

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11 mark

What emotion best captures Blake’s attitude toward the city in the opening stanza?

  • Indifference and routine observation

  • Curiosity and urban diversity

  • Admiration and civic pride

  • Despair at restriction and suffering

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21 mark

What does Blake suggest through the phrase “marks of weakness, marks of woe”?

  • People’s faces display prosperity and joy.

  • Everyone in London is branded by misery and oppression.

  • Only the poorest citizens experience visible hardship.

  • Londoners take pride in surviving despite hardship.

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31 mark

What idea is conveyed by the image of “mind-forg’d manacles”?

  • That citizens are physically chained by rulers and held in actual irons

  • That industrial machinery and factories literally trap the urban poor

  • That mental and social conditioning make people accept oppression

  • That criminals are punished and restrained for personal moral weakness

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41 mark

How does the phrase “black’ning Church” express Blake’s criticism of religion?

  • It links the Church’s literal soot-staining and a moral stain of hypocrisy.

  • It shows the Church blackening from age and smoke alone, without moral fault.

  • It suggests a passing blackening, a mere shadow after services and processions.

  • It portrays blackening as the people’s sins staining faith, and not the Church itself.

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51 mark

In “the hapless soldier’s sigh / Runs in blood down palace walls,” what is Blake implying about power?

  • Royal comfort is built upon the suffering of ordinary soldiers.

  • The monarchy feels contrition and mourns the soldiers’ blood openly.

  • The army willingly endures loss to defend ceremonial honour and glory.

  • The government’s control prevents unrest and safeguards the vulnerable.

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61 mark

How does Blake’s sound imagery contribute to the poem’s atmosphere of suffering?

  • through a chorus of fearful cries echoing through every street

  • through silenced voices that suggest hidden, private pain

  • through sporadic outbursts and isolated shouts heard only now and then

  • through muffled sobs and personal griefs that rarely reach the public ear

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71 mark

How does Blake use structure and rhythm to reinforce his message of oppression?

  •  The irregular rhyme and shifting stresses mirror chaos and revolution.

  • The strict rhythm and repetition reflect control and unbroken suffering.

  • The absence of rhythm and pattern symbolises release and freedom.

  • The changing stanza lengths and pauses show gradual reform and hope.

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11 mark

What shared message about human control is clearest in London and Ozymandias?

  • Both praise law and monuments as proof that people can master nature.

  • Both show that legal titles and monuments cannot master nature or time.

  • Blake celebrates a free river and Shelley laments nature’s cruelty to art.

  • Both insist that nature is chaotic and needs firm human control to keep order.

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21 mark

Compared with My Last Duchess, how is power presented in London?

  • Oppressive power is shown in both poems; Blake targets institutions, Browning a single aristocrat.

  • London criticises controlling authority; My Last Duchess shows private cruelty hidden behind art.

  • Both poets present power as good order, with Blake praising society and Browning praising control.

  • Blake exposes citywide institutional oppression; Browning reveals patriarchal control masked by politeness.

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31 mark

Compared with Checking Out Me History, how does London depict the mechanisms of control?

  • Both reveal oppression: Blake shows rules and limits shaping people’s lives, while Agard shows how school lessons erase identity and rebuilds it through his own history.

  • London praises law and order, while Checking Out Me History rejects shared stories and warns against making personal myths.

  • Both show control as something learned: Blake’s “mind-forg’d manacles” and Agard’s “bandage up me eye,” each showing ways to fight back.

  • Blake shows how laws and customs become inner limits (“charter’d”, “ban”), while Agard shows how history is deliberately hidden and replaces it with his own story.

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