Q 01/05

In which year was Nineteen Eighty-Four published?

A) 1954

B) 1949

C) 1959

D) 1964

Answer · why

B) 1949

It was Orwell's ninth and last completed book; he died seven months after it appeared.

Q 02/05

What is the name of the novel's protagonist?

A) Tom Parsons

B) Ampleforth

C) Winston Smith

D) Mr Charrington

Answer · why

C) Winston Smith

He is 39, a phlegmatic everyman in the Outer Party who has vague memories of the time before the Revolution.

Q 03/05

What has Great Britain been renamed in the novel?

A) Airstrip One

B) Landing Zone Alpha

C) Outpost Britannia

D) Sector Seven

Answer · why

A) Airstrip One

It is a province of one of three totalitarian superstates locked in perpetual war.

Q 04/05

Which superstate does the protagonist live in?

A) Eurasia

B) Oceania

C) Eastasia

D) Atlantica

Answer · why

B) Oceania

The other two superstates alternate as its enemy; when the enemy switches mid-week the past is rewritten to say it was always so.

Q 05/05

What is the name of the Party's ruling ideology?

A) Newthink

B) Partycracy

C) Oceanism

D) Ingsoc

Answer · why

D) Ingsoc

It is a contraction of 'English Socialism', which Orwell saw as a perversion of the socialist ideals he actually held.