74 general knowledge questions with answers
74 general knowledge questions on science, nature, culture and sport, each with four options, the answer and one line on why. They come straight from the trivia game in Quible, so every one has been fact-checked. Read them out at a quiz night or tap an answer to check yourself.
Questions 1 to 25
Which element has the chemical symbol “Au”?
Answer
Gold. “Au” comes from the Latin aurum. Silver is argentum, which is why it gets the symbol Ag.
Who wrote “Faust”?
Answer
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe worked on the material for over 60 years. He finished the second part shortly before his death.
How many keys does a standard piano have?
Answer
88. 52 white ones and 36 black ones, seven octaves plus a bit.
Which planet is the hottest in the solar system?
Answer
Venus. Mercury sits closer to the sun, but Venus traps the heat under its clouds.
Which sea lies between Italy and the Balkan peninsula?
Answer
The Adriatic Sea. The Tyrrhenian lies west of Italy, the Ionian to the south.
Which organ produces insulin?
Answer
Pancreas. The pancreas, more precisely the islets of Langerhans in its tissue.
Who painted the ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel?
Answer
Michelangelo. Michelangelo needed four years for it, and thought of himself as a sculptor rather than a painter.
How many players does a volleyball team have on the court?
Answer
6. Six. In beach volleyball it is only two.
Which gas do plants take in during photosynthesis?
Answer
Carbon dioxide. Plants bind carbon dioxide and give off oxygen. At night they take in oxygen too.
What is the longest bone in the human body?
Answer
Thighbone. In adults the thighbone measures about a quarter of a person's height.
Who composed “The Four Seasons”?
Answer
Antonio Vivaldi. Vivaldi paired each of the four concertos with a poem of its own.
How long is one period of NHL ice hockey?
Answer
20 minutes. Three times 20 minutes of pure playing time. The clock stops at every whistle.
Which is the fastest land animal in the world?
Answer
Cheetah. A cheetah reaches around 110 km/h, but only holds that pace for a few hundred meters.
Which river joins the Danube at Belgrade?
Answer
The Sava. The fortress of Belgrade sits right on the fork of the two rivers.
Which mountain range is treated as the border between Europe and Asia?
Answer
Urals. The Ural mountains have been drawn as the eastern edge of Europe since the 18th century.
Which is the largest land animal alive today?
Answer
The African elephant. Bulls reach four meters at the shoulder and six tons.
How many bones does an adult human have?
Answer
206. Babies start out with around 300 bones. Many of them fuse together later.
Who composed “The Magic Flute”?
Answer
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart finished the opera in 1791, a few weeks before his death.
Which planet has the most striking rings?
Answer
Saturn. Saturn's rings are almost pure ice. Jupiter has rings too, but they are wafer thin.
Which is the longest river in Africa?
Answer
Nile. The Nile runs around 6,650 kilometers. Only the Amazon plays in the same league.
Which language has the most native speakers worldwide?
Answer
Mandarin. Around 900 million people grow up speaking Mandarin. English only takes the lead once second-language speakers count.
Which metal is liquid at room temperature?
Answer
Mercury. Mercury does not freeze until minus 39 degrees, which is why it used to sit in thermometers.
In which museum does the Mona Lisa hang?
Answer
Louvre. The Louvre shows her behind armored glass. The theft of 1911 made her world famous.
Which living creature has the largest eyes?
Answer
The colossal squid. Its eyes are about the size of a soccer ball.
What does the Richter scale measure?
Answer
The strength of earthquakes. It is logarithmic: one step up means about 32 times more energy released.
Questions 26 to 50
Which country has the longest coastline in the world?
Answer
Canada. With all its islands, Canada comes to over 200,000 kilometers of coast.
Which tree can grow the oldest?
Answer
Bristlecone pine. Bristlecone pines in California are over 4,000 years old. Hardly any single tree gets older.
Which strait separates Sicily from the Italian mainland?
Answer
The Strait of Messina. At its narrowest the strait is barely three kilometers wide.
Which sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland?
Answer
The Irish Sea. At the narrowest crossing the two coasts are about 20 kilometers apart.
Which of these seas has the highest salt content?
Answer
The Red Sea. Hot, narrow and with barely a river feeding it, so the salt stays put.
Which is the deepest lake in the world?
Answer
Lake Baikal. 1,642 meters down, and it holds about a fifth of the world's unfrozen fresh water.
Which is the largest lake in Europe?
Answer
Lake Ladoga. Ladoga lies northeast of Saint Petersburg and is bigger than Cyprus.
Which is the largest lake in the European Union?
Answer
Vänern. Vänern in Sweden covers about 5,650 square kilometers.
Which is the highest mountain in the Pyrenees?
Answer
Aneto. Aneto stands 3,404 meters high, on the Spanish side of the range.
Which strait connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara?
Answer
The Bosporus. The Dardanelles carry on from the Sea of Marmara to the Aegean.
Which European country has by far the longest coastline?
Answer
Norway. Count every fjord and island and Norway passes 100,000 kilometers.
Which sea has no coastline at all?
Answer
The Sargasso Sea. Ocean currents draw its border instead of land.
Which is the driest desert in the world?
Answer
The Atacama. Some weather stations there have never recorded a drop of rain.
Which country has the most UNESCO World Heritage sites?
Answer
Italy. Italy and China trade the top spot back and forth every few years.
Which country has the most lakes in the world?
Answer
Canada. Canada holds more lake surface than the rest of the world put together.
Which is the highest waterfall in the world?
Answer
Angel Falls. A drop of 979 meters in Venezuela. Much of it turns to mist on the way down.
Which is the second deepest lake in the world?
Answer
Lake Tanganyika. Nearly 1,500 meters deep, and four countries share its shore.
Which is the highest mountain in North America?
Answer
Denali. 6,190 meters in Alaska. Its name has flipped between Denali and Mount McKinley more than once.
Which is the second highest mountain in the world?
Answer
K2. 8,611 meters, and far more dangerous to climb than Everest.
In which country does the highest mountain outside Asia stand?
Answer
Argentina. Aconcagua reaches 6,961 meters, just inside the Argentine border.
Which is the largest rainforest in the world after the Amazon?
Answer
The Congo Basin. Six countries share it, and it is often called the planet's second lung.
Which lake has shrunk to a fraction of its size since 1960?
Answer
The Aral Sea. Its two feeder rivers were diverted to water cotton fields.
Which animal makes the longest migration of any animal?
Answer
The Arctic tern. It flies from the Arctic to the Antarctic and back, every single year.
Which tree species grows the tallest?
Answer
The coast redwood. The tallest one measured stands over 115 meters, in California.
Which country is home to the most wild tigers?
Answer
India. About three out of four wild tigers live in India.
Questions 51 to 74
Which ocean current keeps northwestern Europe mild?
Answer
The Gulf Stream. Without it Norway would be as cold as southern Greenland.
Which fabled animal is a national symbol of Scotland?
Answer
The unicorn. It has been on the Scottish coat of arms since the 15th century.
In which layer of the atmosphere does the ozone layer sit?
Answer
The stratosphere. Roughly 15 to 35 kilometers up, well above the weather.
What is the deepest known point in the ocean called?
Answer
The Challenger Deep. About 11 kilometers down in the Mariana Trench. Everest would vanish in it.
Which scale measures the hardness of minerals?
Answer
The Mohs scale. It runs from talc at 1 to diamond at 10.
What does the Beaufort scale measure?
Answer
Wind force. A sailor came up with it, reading the wind off the sails.
Which effect deflects winds to the right in the northern hemisphere?
Answer
The Coriolis effect. The Earth turns underneath the moving air. That is the whole trick.
Which gas makes up most of the Earth's atmosphere?
Answer
Nitrogen. About 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen, and the rest is a rounding error.
Which rock forms when lava cools quickly?
Answer
Basalt. Granite is the slow version. It cools deep underground over ages.
Which planet has the shortest day?
Answer
Jupiter. The biggest planet spins fastest. One turn takes not quite ten hours.
Which planet has the largest volcano in the solar system?
Answer
Mars. Olympus Mons is about 22 kilometers high and as wide as Poland.
Which moon in the solar system is the largest?
Answer
Ganymede. Ganymede orbits Jupiter and is bigger than the planet Mercury.
Which moon of Saturn has a thick atmosphere and lakes of methane?
Answer
Titan. A probe landed there in 2005 and sent pictures of river beds.
Which ocean is the deepest?
Answer
The Pacific. It is also the largest, covering about a third of the planet.
In which city does the Uffizi Gallery stand?
Answer
Florence. The Medici built it as government offices. Uffizi simply means offices.
Who wrote “Don Quixote”?
Answer
Miguel de Cervantes. He wrote the second part after somebody else published a fake sequel.
Who wrote “The Divine Comedy”?
Answer
Dante Alighieri. He wrote it in Tuscan, and that is why Italian sounds Tuscan today.
Which composer wrote the “Peer Gynt” suites?
Answer
Edvard Grieg. Grieg wrote them for a play by his countryman Henrik Ibsen.
Which country is the composer Jean Sibelius from?
Answer
Finland. His “Finlandia” became a quiet protest song under Russian rule.
In which country does the temple complex of Angkor Wat stand?
Answer
Cambodia. It is the largest religious building in the world by area.
In which sport is the America's Cup contested?
Answer
Sailing. It is the oldest trophy in international sport, first raced for in 1851.
How many official languages does Switzerland have?
Answer
4. German, French, Italian and Romansh.
How many degrees of latitude lie between the equator and a pole?
Answer
90. 90 up, 90 down, and 360 degrees all the way around the globe.
How long does sunlight take to reach the Earth?
Answer
About 8 minutes. 150 million kilometers at 300,000 kilometers a second.
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