General knowledge quiz

This quiz is for everyone from about age eleven up: it mixes science, art, history and the human body, like a quiz night with friends. The first questions come easily, then it gets harder, up to facts people think they know without quite being able to pin them down.

Each answer comes with a story that makes it stick: why the planet closest to the Sun is not the hottest, which gas really makes up most of the air we breathe, how the speed of light is used to define the metre. Tip: when two options look alike, ask yourself which one would make a classic trap and be suspicious of it.

General knowledge quiz

1. How many sides does a hexagon have? *

2. Which planet is closest to the Sun? *

3. Who painted the Mona Lisa? *

4. In which year did humans first walk on the Moon? *

5. What is the chemical symbol for gold? *

6. Which composer wrote the Ninth Symphony whose finale contains the “Ode to Joy”? *

7. How many bones are there in an adult human skeleton? *

8. Which gas makes up most of Earth’s atmosphere? *

9. Which physicist published the general theory of relativity in 1915? *

10. Roughly how fast does light travel in a vacuum? *