Germs: A Virus to Survive KS2 Quiz (With Answers)

Q1 of 45

What is the name of the boy at the centre of Germs?

• Albert
• Arthur
• Alfie
• Andrew

Q2 of 45

What is Alfie terrified of at the beginning of the book?

• The dark
• Dogs
• Heights
• Germs, illness and disease

Q3 of 45

Who or what has caused Alfie to become so fearful?

• A bad experience with illness
• A news report
• A frightening film
• His overprotective, hypochondriac mother

Q4 of 45

What is the name of Alfie's mother?

• Martha
• Millicent
• Margaret
• Mildred

Q5 of 45

How does Alfie's mother behave that makes life difficult for him?

• She ignores him
• She is always absent
• She is cruel to him
• She wraps him in extreme overprotection, panics about every germ, and prevents him from living a normal life

Q6 of 45

What event forces Alfie out of his comfort zone?

• A school trip
• A real viral outbreak that requires him to actually be brave
• A new friend arriving
• Moving house

Q7 of 45

What does Alfie discover about facing his fears?

• That his mother was right
• That germs really are dangerous
• That fears always come true
• That confronting his fear is less terrible than he imagined, and that he is capable of far more than his mother believes

Q8 of 45

What role do real health professionals play in the story?

• They cause more panic
• They are unhelpful
• They model rational, measured responses to illness that contrast with Alfie's mother's hysteria
• They are not in the story

Q9 of 45

What is the name of Alfie's best friend?

• Billy
• Bobby
• Benny
• Barney

Q10 of 45

How does Barney help Alfie in the story?

• His relaxed, fearless attitude to life provides a counter-model to Alfie's anxiety and gently challenges him to reconsider his worldview
• He is immune to germs
• He gets ill first
• He shares his fears

Q11 of 45

What does Alfie's mother do when she hears about the outbreak?

• She leaves town
• She descends into extreme panic, making Alfie's situation worse
• She stays calm
• She calls the army

Q12 of 45

What kind of humour does Walliams use in Germs?

• Very dark humour
• There is no humour deeper meaning
• Absurdist comedy about extreme germophobia
• Physical slapstick only

Q13 of 45

What does Alfie learn about the difference between rational and irrational fear?

• All fear is rational
• He does not learn this distinction
• Some level of caution about illness is sensible, but his mother's extreme anxiety has created a phobia in him that goes far beyond what the actual risk justifies
• Fear is never rational

Q14 of 45

How does the story end for Alfie?

• He gets very ill
• He emerges from the crisis with greater confidence and resilience, beginning to move beyond his crippling fear of germs
• He remains fearful
• He becomes more fearful

Q15 of 45

What does the title 'A Virus to Survive' suggest beyond the literal virus?

• It refers only to the virus in the story
• It suggests that anxiety and overprotective parenting are themselves a kind of virus that must be survived
• Viruses are only physical
• The subtitle has no additional meaning

Q16 of 45

How is 'Germs: A Virus to Survive' presented differently from a standard novel?

• It is written entirely in verse
• It reads more like a guide or handbook than a traditional story
• It is a choose-your-own-adventure format
• It is a graphic novel with minimal text

Q17 of 45

What type of humour does the book mainly use?

• Slapstick about doctors and nurses
• Dark comedy about serious illness and death
• Gross-out comedy about bodily functions and the disgusting reality of viruses and bacteria
• Wordplay and puns about medical terms

Q18 of 45

What does the book do with real scientific information?

• It uses invented science that sounds convincing
• It avoids real science to keep the comedy uninterrupted
• It separates fact boxes clearly from the fictional story
• It weaves genuine facts about viruses and bacteria throughout the jokes

Q19 of 45

What practical advice does the book genuinely offer?

• Taking vitamins and eating well
• Wearing a mask in public at all times
• Staying at home and avoiding other people entirely
• Handwashing, basic hygiene and not touching your face

Q20 of 45

Why was this book particularly timely when published?

• It came out during flu season as a deliberate marketing decision
• It was part of a public health campaign
• It was published during the COVID-19 pandemic, making its subject immediately and personally relevant to children
• It was published during a measles outbreak

Q21 of 45

How does the book help children feel less frightened about germs and illness?

• By telling them their fears are irrational
• By focusing only on mild non-serious illnesses
• By encouraging children to talk to their parents about their worries
• By using humour to reduce fear while giving real knowledge

Q22 of 45

What is unusual about the 'villain' in this book compared to other Walliams stories?

• The villain is genuinely sympathetic with understandable motivations
• The villain turns out to be the main character's own immune system
• The villain is a misguided scientist
• There is no human villain

Q23 of 45

How is the main character in 'Germs' described in terms of their relationship with illness?

• They are a doctor's child who knows too much about germs
• They are genuinely ill and must learn to cope
• They are a hypochondriac who panics at every news story about illness
• They have a parent who is ill and have developed anxiety about health

Q24 of 45

What does 'Germs' show about Walliams's range as an author?

• That he works best with illustrators and text alone is not enough
• That his best work is always character-driven
• That he can adapt format and style to address real-world issues while keeping his characteristic humour
• That he is limited to comedy and cannot address serious content

Q25 of 45

What is co-author Dr Pepper's role in the book?

• A fictional child virus expert
• A fictional scientist character created by Walliams
• A real medical expert who provides scientific accuracy alongside Walliams's humour
• The book has no co-author

Q26 of 45

How does the book explain what a virus actually is?

• Using a detailed scientific diagram
• Through a funny comparison
• Using a character who has a virus and describes the experience
• Through an imaginary interview with a virus itself

Q27 of 45

What does the book say about antibiotics and viruses?

• That new antibiotics are being developed that can fight viruses
• That antibiotics should be taken as a precaution whenever you feel ill
• That antibiotics do not work on viruses
• That antibiotics are the best cure for any illness

Q28 of 45

How does the book use an imaginary virus character?

• To show what a truly deadly virus looks like up close
• As a narrator who comments on human hygiene habits
• To explain from the virus's perspective what it is doing to your body
• As the villain of a fictional story running alongside the information

Q29 of 45

What does the book suggest about how we think about being ill?

• That we get ill too often because of poor government health policy
• That a bit of knowledge reduces panic
• That modern medicine means we should not worry about illness at all
• That we should take all illness very seriously

Q30 of 45

How does the book make handwashing feel important without being boring?

• By using statistics about how many people become ill each year
• By having a character who refuses to wash their hands and gets very ill
• By showing in gross detail exactly what remains on your hands if you do not wash them properly
• By listing all the diseases prevented by handwashing

Q31 of 45

How does Walliams use childhood anxiety as the central theme of Germs, and how does this differ from his usual focus on external villains?

• Anxiety is not the theme
• External villains are still the main problem
• Unlike novels where the threat is external (a wicked aunt, a criminal), Germs places the source of Alfie's suffering inside
• Germs is the same as his other books

Q32 of 45

What does Alfie's mother represent beyond her comic extreme? What genuine parenting anxiety does she embody?

• She is a one-dimensional villain
• Overprotective parents are bad, and
• She is irredeemably harmful
• She represents the real parental anxiety that excessive protectiveness creates

Q33 of 45

How does the actual viral outbreak force a confrontation between fantasy fear and reality?

• Real illness is always worse than feared
• The real outbreak
• The outbreak proves Alfie's mother right
• The outbreak is irrelevant to Alfie's growth

Q34 of 45

What does Walliams suggest about the relationship between parental anxiety and childhood mental health?

• Children develop anxiety independently
• Parental anxiety helps children
• Parental behaviour doesn't affect children's mental health
• The novel shows that parental anxiety is transmissible

Q35 of 45

How does Barney's character function as a foil to Alfie?

• Barney is brave, which is consistent with Dahl's characteristic directness as a storyteller
• Barney is superior to Alfie
• Barney's ease in the world models an alternative way of being
• Barney encourages recklessness

Q36 of 45

How does Walliams use comedy about germophobia to make the subject of childhood anxiety accessible rather than clinical?

• Comedy minimises anxiety
• By making the germophobia funny
• Comedy is inappropriate for anxiety
• Clinical accuracy is needed

Q37 of 45

What does the novel suggest about the concept of resilience in children?

• Resilience is innate
• Resilient children are stronger, and
• Resilience cannot be developed
• Resilience is shown to be learnable through graduated exposure to difficulty

Q38 of 45

How does Germs reflect contemporary anxieties about public health, viruses and pandemic fear?

• Pandemic anxiety is too serious for children's books
• The contemporary context is accidental
• It has no contemporary relevance
• Published in a post-COVID era when public anxiety about viruses reached unprecedented levels, Germs engages directly with cultural germophobia, offering a children's-eye perspective on a collective anxiety that has pervaded recent years

Q39 of 45

What does the distinction between useful caution and debilitating anxiety suggest about health and mental wellness?

• The novel teaches that caution
• All caution is good
• All anxiety is useful
• The distinction is too subtle for children

Q40 of 45

How does Alfie's eventual courage serve as a model for young readers experiencing their own anxieties?

• Alfie is unrealistically brave
• By showing a genuinely fearful child becoming capable of courage not because his fear disappears but because he acts despite it, Walliams provides a realistic and encouraging model for anxious readers
• Alfie is different from ordinary anxious children
• Courage requires fearlessness

Q41 of 45

What might the viral outbreak — an external, real threat — teach Alfie that his mother's imagined threats could not?

• Real threats prove his mother right
• His mother's threats prepare him for reality
• Real threats are always worse
• Only confronting something real can calibrate our fear responses

Q42 of 45

How does Walliams handle the potentially controversial territory of a child whose mental health has been affected by parental behaviour?

• The mother is the villain
• Walliams treats both Alfie and his mother with compassion
• He blames the mother harshly, a reading that locates the novel's meaning in its historical and personal context rather than in its literary structure
• The topic is avoided

Q43 of 45

In what ways does Germs represent Walliams's most psychologically sophisticated novel?

• Psychological sophistication is not relevant for children's books
• All his novels are equally sophisticated
• By centring the source of the problem in the character's internal world rather than in an external villain, Germs requires a more psychologically nuanced resolution
• Germs is simpler than his other books

Q44 of 45

What does the ending of Germs suggest about recovery from anxiety — is it a sudden transformation or a gradual process?

• The ending shows the beginning of recovery rather than complete transformation
• Anxiety can be instantly cured
• Recovery from anxiety is sudden
• Alfie doesn't recover

Q45 of 45

How does the title 'Germs' operate on both literal and metaphorical levels throughout the book?

• The title has one meaning, and
• Germs are both the literal subject of Alfie's phobia and a metaphor for the irrational fears that infect our thinking
• The title is literal, and
• Metaphorical titles are too complex for children