Fifty questions, fifty answers, all visible on the page. Enough to test your general knowledge for real, revise, or fuel a quiz night without preparing a thing.
The questions are sorted into five fields — geography, history, art and culture, science, nature — with a level marked on each. Count one point per correct answer; the scale is at the bottom of the page. If ten questions are enough to warm up, start with our 10 or 20 general knowledge questions. And for the full set, see our 100 questions.
Geography
1. Which country has the most time zones in the world? (hard) France (12). Thanks to its overseas territories spread across every ocean, it edges out Russia and the United States.
2. What is the capital of Canada? (easy) Ottawa. Many think of Toronto or Montreal, but the federal government sits in Ottawa, in Ontario.
3. What is the capital of Brazil? (medium) Brasília. Built from scratch and inaugurated in 1960 to populate the country’s interior, taking the role from Rio de Janeiro.
4. On which continent is the Sahara Desert? (easy) Africa. The largest hot desert in the world stretches across about a dozen North African countries.
5. What is the highest peak in Africa? (medium) Kilimanjaro. This dormant volcano in Tanzania is also the tallest free-standing mountain in the world.
6. Which strait separates Spain from Morocco? (medium) The Strait of Gibraltar. Barely 14 km wide at its narrowest, it links the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.
7. In which country is Marrakech? (easy) Morocco. Nicknamed the “red city”, it is one of the country’s four imperial cities.
8. What is the capital of Japan? (easy) Tokyo. Formerly named Edo, it became the capital in 1868, replacing Kyoto.
9. Which country is entirely surrounded by South Africa? (hard) Lesotho. One of only three states in the world fully enclosed within a single other country.
10. Which river runs through Paris? (easy) The Seine. Around 777 km long before it flows into the English Channel at Le Havre.
Want to go further in geography? Try our capitals quiz by continent.
History
1. In what year did the storming of the Bastille take place? (easy) 1789. The 14th of July 1789 is seen as the spark of the French Revolution.
2. Which pharaoh lies in the tomb found intact in 1922? (medium) Tutankhamun. His near-untouched burial, uncovered by Howard Carter, reignited Egyptomania worldwide.
3. Which Genoese navigator reached America in 1492 on behalf of Spain? (easy) Christopher Columbus. He believed he had reached the Indies, hence the name “Indians” given to the native peoples.
4. Who was the last queen of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt? (medium) Cleopatra VII. An ally of Caesar and then of Mark Antony, she took her own life in 30 BC.
5. Where does the word “salary” come from, by its Latin root? (hard) From salt (salarium). The term originally referred to a sum tied to salt, a precious commodity in Roman times.
6. Which Roman city was buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD? (medium) Pompeii. Rediscovered in the 18th century, it froze a snapshot of Roman daily life.
7. Which French emperor was defeated at Waterloo in 1815? (easy) Napoleon I. The defeat against the British and the Prussians ended his Hundred Days.
8. Which civilisation had Tenochtitlan, on the site of modern Mexico City, as its capital? (medium) The Aztecs. Their empire fell to the Spaniard Hernán Cortés in the 16th century.
9. Which Portuguese explorer reached India by sea in 1498? (medium) Vasco da Gama. His sea route opened up direct spice trade between Europe and Asia.
10. In what year did the First World War begin? (easy) 1914. It was triggered after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.
To put faces to the dates: our figures who shaped history.
Art and culture
1. Which French sculptor created “The Thinker”? (easy) Auguste Rodin. Conceived around 1880, the statue belonged to his larger work “The Gates of Hell”.
2. Who wrote “Les Misérables”? (easy) Victor Hugo. Published in 1862, the novel follows the former convict Jean Valjean.
3. Which painter cut off part of his own ear and painted “The Starry Night”? (medium) Vincent van Gogh. The master of post-impressionism sold almost nothing in his lifetime.
4. Which composer, having gone deaf, wrote the “9th Symphony” and its “Ode to Joy”? (medium) Ludwig van Beethoven. He finished it when he could barely hear at all.
5. Which country was William Shakespeare from? (easy) England. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, he wrote plays such as “Hamlet” and “Romeo and Juliet”.
6. Which architect designed the Sagrada Família in Barcelona? (medium) Antoni Gaudí. Begun in 1882, this masterpiece of Catalan modernism is still unfinished today.
7. Which Spanish artist co-founded Cubism and painted “Guernica”? (medium) Pablo Picasso. The painting denounces the bombing of that Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.
8. In Greek mythology, which hero had to complete twelve labours? (easy) Heracles (Hercules to the Romans). The trials were imposed as penance after a fit of madness.
9. Which Austrian child prodigy composed the opera “The Magic Flute”? (hard) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was composing by the age of five and left over 600 works when he died at 35.
10. Which Tchaikovsky ballet features a princess turned into a bird? (hard) Swan Lake. Created in 1877, it is one of the most performed ballets in the world.
To recognise the great paintings: our essential artworks to know.
Science
1. What is the chemical symbol for gold? (medium) Au, from the Latin aurum, meaning “gold”.
2. What is the speed of light in a vacuum, in round numbers? (medium) About 300,000 km/s (299,792,458 m/s exactly). So fundamental that it has defined the metre since 1983.
3. How many bones are in an adult human skeleton? (medium) 206. A newborn has close to 270; some fuse together as the body grows.
4. Which gas is the most abundant in Earth’s atmosphere? (medium) Nitrogen, about 78% of the air, well ahead of oxygen (21%).
5. Which scientist was the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize? (easy) Marie Curie. Awarded in physics in 1903, she remains the only person honoured in two different sciences (physics and chemistry).
6. Which is the closest planet to the Sun? (easy) Mercury, which is also the smallest in the Solar System.
7. Which organ of the human body produces insulin? (hard) The pancreas. A failure of this hormone causes diabetes.
8. What is the chemical formula for water? (easy) H₂O: two hydrogen atoms to one of oxygen.
9. Which English scientist formulated the law of universal gravitation? (easy) Isaac Newton. Legend has it an apple falling from a tree set him thinking.
10. What is the direct change from a solid to a gas, skipping the liquid stage, called? (hard) Sublimation. It is what dry ice does, turning straight to vapour.
To connect science to the rest of what you know: the general knowledge guide.
Nature
1. What is the largest cat in the world? (medium) The tiger. The Siberian tiger tops 300 kg, heavier than the lion.
2. How many legs does a spider have? (easy) Eight. Insects have only six: a spider isn’t one, it’s an arachnid.
3. Which bird is the fastest in the world in a dive? (hard) The peregrine falcon. In a dive it passes 300 km/h, making it the fastest animal on the planet.
4. What is the largest bird in the world? (easy) The ostrich. Unable to fly, it makes up for it by running up to 70 km/h.
5. Which is the only mammal capable of true, powered flight? (medium) The bat. The flying squirrel, by contrast, only glides.
6. What is the tallest land animal in the world? (easy) The giraffe. Its neck, over two metres long, still has just seven vertebrae, like ours.
7. Which tree does the acorn come from? (easy) The oak. Its fruit feeds wild boar, squirrels and many other animals.
8. Which insect produces honey? (easy) The bee. A hive holds tens of thousands of workers around a single queen.
9. What do you call an animal that feeds only on plants? (medium) A herbivore. The opposite of a carnivore, which eats only meat.
10. What is the largest living reptile in the world? (medium) The saltwater crocodile. The estuarine croc tops 6 metres, from Southeast Asia to Oceania.
More surprising still: our strange and little-known animals.
Your score
Count one point per correct answer, out of 50.
0 to 20: foundations to broaden, no shame in it. The general knowledge guide maps the fields to cover first.
21 to 35: solid general level. You hold your own in any conversation, with a few gaps on the sharper questions.
36 to 50: excellent. Measure yourself against the expert tiers in our quiz by level.
Going further
Fifty questions is a fair marathon. But general knowledge is built in small, regular doses, not in one sitting.
That’s the idea behind SAPIRO: hundreds of quizzes on geography (197 countries), history, art and nature, with an explanation behind every answer. Free, no ads. For a structured month-long plan, follow our method to revise general knowledge in 30 days.
Frequently asked questions
How many questions make a good general knowledge quiz?
About ten for a quick warm-up, around fifty for a proper game. Beyond that, it’s better to split into themed rounds to keep the group’s attention.
How do you organise a general knowledge quiz with friends?
Prepare 30 to 50 questions split by theme and difficulty, read them out loud, and have answers written on paper before you reveal. One point per correct answer, a bonus for the hard ones. Our quiz night with friends gives a ready-made format.
Are these questions suitable for exam prep?
For general practice, yes. But an exam calls for targeted work on its syllabus: past papers, recurring themes, time management. Treat the general knowledge round as a base to build on, not an end in itself.
Where can I find even more questions?
The SAPIRO app offers hundreds of questions sorted by theme and level, free, with an explanation behind every answer.
