General Trivia Quizzes

General Trivia Quizzes Part 1

1) Who became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1937?

Answer: Neville Chamberlain

2) Which city is closest to Berlin?

A) Leipzig
B) Hanover
C) Hamburg
D) Prague

Answer: A

3) Which explorer headed Darien, the first stable European settlement in South America?

A) Ponce de Leon
B) Vasco Balboa
C) Hernando Cortes
D) Francisco Pizarro
E) Francisco Coronado

Answer: B

Darien Province is now divided between Panama and Colombia.

4) The ‘seas’ on the moon are called:

A) Maria
B) Rivers
C) Bays

Answer: A

5) What type of galaxy is the Milky Way?

A) Elliptical
B) Irregular
C) Circumflex
D) Spiral
E) Active nuclei

Answer: D

The classifications of galaxies were established by Edwin Hubble.

6) What is the generic term for the mechanical, electrical and electronic components of a computer?

Answer: Hardware

7) Who was the author of the book The Trial?

Answer: Franz Kafka

8) A substance whose density is greater than 1 g/mL will:

A) Float
B) Be suspended
C) Sink

Answer: C

9) In advertising, 1975 saw the birth of the “double-stuff” variant of which Nabisco product?

Answer: Oreos

10) Gases such as oxygen and carbon dioxide are more soluble in water that is:

A) Warm and moving
B) Cool and moving
C) Cool and stationary

Answer: B

11) Which of these animated characters attended “Wossamotta U.”?

A) Fred Flintstone
B) Bugs Bunny
C) Bullwinkle
D) Goofy

Answer: C

12) One function of an internal skeleton is to:

A) Make spinal cord cells
B) Protect vital organs
C) Provide attachment for nerves

Answer: B

13) The tango, in its present form, emerged from what country in the late 19th century?

A) Cuba
B) Argentina
C) Spain
D) Brazil

Answer: B

14) Which instrument’s name translates literally as “soft loud”?

Answer: The Pianoforte

15) Which tool is used for cutting an uneven edge on a piece of fabric?

A) Bodkin
B) Spring scissors
C) Puncheon
D) Church key
E) Pinking shears

Answer: E

The notched blades make a serrated edge, which is slower to unravel than a straight one.

General Trivia Quizzes Part 2

16) How many squares are there on a traditional Snakes and Ladders board?

Answer: 100.

17) Who wrote the poem “The Road Not Taken”?

A) Rudyard Kipling
B) E.E. Cummings
C) Robert Frost
D) Robert Lowell
E) T.S. Eliot

Answer: C

The road in question is the “one less traveled,” or the individualist’s way.

18) In what year was Good Housekeeping magazine first published?

A) 1885
B) 1882
C) 1902
D) 1934

Answer: A

19) Until the French Revolution, which famous building was the primary home to the French royal family?

Answer: The Palace of Versailles

20) What state did geologist and photographer Richard Daintree do most of his work in?

Answer: Queensland

21) Who was the first person to reach the South Pole?

Answer: Roald Amundsen

The Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, on December 13, 1911.

22) Where on the Pacific coast does the TransSiberian railway terminate?

Answer: Vladivostok

23) From the Latin meaning “under penalty,” which legal order requires a person to appear to testify at a judicial proceeding?

Answer: a subpoena

24) All four feet of a beaver are webbed.

A) True
B) False

Answer: B

25) Initially billed as the first truck-based vehicle in its history, what is the name of Cadillac’s SUV?

Answer: Escalade

26) What do you call a grouping of ferrets?

Answer: A Business or Fesnyng of ferrets

27) What is the name of the species of snake which kills by squeezing its prey?

Answer: The boa constrictor.

It can reach lengths of between 3-13 feet depending on the availability of its prey and its particular environment.

28) Who were the three presidents who were widowed in office?

Answer: Benjamin Harrison, John Tyler and Woodrow Wilson

29) Find the Famous First Words

“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents–except at occasional intervals when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.”

A) The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe
B) Dead Souls, Nikolay Gogol
C) Paul Clifford, by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton.

Answer: C

Bleak House, Charles Dickens ?”It was a dark and stormy night …” from Edward George Bulwer-Lytton’s novel Paul Clifford (1830), is perhaps the most notorious of opening lines, ridiculed by modern critics for its overwrought Victorian prose. The rudderless opening sentence has even given rise to an annual contest that challenges contestants to write the first line to a hypothetical (and presumably atrocious) novel.

30) The smallest county in the U.S. has a huge population. What county is it?

Answer: New York County, which is Manhattan Island, with twenty-two square miles (and a lot of people)

General Trivia Quizzes Part 3

31) Who was the first person to fly over the South Pole?

Answer: Admiral Richard E. Byrd

In November 1929, American Admiral Richard E. Byrd flew his tri-motor plane, the Floyd Bennett, across the South Pole. Byrd named the plane for his pilot from several earlier explorations.

32) Sam Adams was one of the leaders of the townspeople in the Boston Tea Party.

A) True
B) False

Answer: A

33) This green stone is used as a marble substitute:

A) Topaz
B) Jasper
C) Agate
D) Serpentine
E) Tourmaline

Answer: D

Serpentine is sometimes used as a gemstone.

34) Which nation’s greatest 18th-century painter was John Singleton Copley?

A) Canada
B) USA
C) Australia

Answer: B

35) In art, Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa in which century?

Answer: 16th

36) In which country was the Battle of Waterloo fought?

Answer: Belgium

37) What is the largest pinniped?

Answer: The largest pinniped is the elephant seal, which can weigh as much as four tons.

38) Who is the patron saint of travelers?

Answer: Saint Christopher

39) Which comic strip character lives in Okefenokee swamp?

A) Broom Hilda
B) Pogo
C) Hagar the Horrible
D) Zippy
E) Shoe

Answer: B

An annual “Pogofest” is staged in Waycross, Georgia, near the famous swamp grounds.

40) What Cambridge bridge shares its name with one in Venice?

Answer: The Bridge of Sighs

41) This astronomer discovered eight nebulas and three comets and was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1828. Can you name the scientist?

A) Caroline Lucretia Herschel
B) Johannes Kepler
C) Luther Burbank

Answer: A

42) Which amphibians can hatch out of their eggs while still in the mother’s womb?

Answer: Lizards

43) In politics, Sinn Fein is considered the political wing of which military organization?

Answer: The Irish Republican Army

44) Which U.S. museum was originally known as “The Museum of Non-Objective Painting”?

Answer: The Guggenheim

45) What was the bloodiest single-day battle during the U.S. Civil War?

Answer: Battle of Antietam

46) In literature, which American author wrote the classic military satire “Catch-22”?

Answer: Joseph Heller

47) Which country does not border the Eastern European Republic of Georgia?

A) Russia
B) Turkey
C) Armenia
D) Belarus
E) Azerbaijan

Answer: D

Belarus is surrounded by Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, Poland and Ukraine.

48) Plants using anemophily are pollinated by:

A) Rodents
B) Winds
C) Birds
D) Insects
E) Humans

Answer: B

This method is most common in conifers and cycads.

49) This data-processing pioneer is credited with creating the first compiler and also helped develop two computer languages. Can you name the scientist?

A) Bill Gates
B) Grace Hopper
C) Alan Turing

Answer: B

50) What Californian bridge was Don Brown the first to cross, on 27 May 1937?

Answer: The Golden Gate Bridge