100 free 7th Grade trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
These 68 seventh grade trivia questions follow what most 7th graders in the United States actually study. Life science brings cells and organelles, Mendel's peas, DNA, blood, bones and the kingdoms of living things, with earth science on tides, rock types and the planet's core. Math sticks to the pre-algebra year: percent, ratios, probability, negative numbers, angles, median and the area of a circle. History covers the medieval and early modern world, from Charlemagne, the Crusades and the Black Death to samurai Japan, Mansa Musa, the Inca and Aztecs, Gutenberg and the Reformation, plus the Alamo for the Texas history crowd. Geography, grammar, figures of speech and the reading list, including The Outsiders, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and A Wrinkle in Time, round it out. Every question is multiple choice and written so a 12- or 13-year-old who has been paying attention can get it, with a handful of harder ones to sort out the top of the class. Use it for a bell-ringer, a review game before a test, a family quiz night with a middle schooler at the table, or to find out how much of seventh grade you still remember. Answers were checked against encyclopaedia and primary sources before publishing, and each question shows its explanation and citation once you answer.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which organelle is nicknamed the "powerhouse of the cell"?
Mitochondrion
The nickname was popularized by a 1957 Scientific American article; the energy-releasing reactions happen on the folded inner membrane.
Q 02Along with water and light, what do plants need to make their own food through photosynthesis?
Carbon dioxide
The gas is pulled in through tiny pores called stomata, and the oxygen we breathe is the leftover from the process.
Q 03Gregor Mendel worked out the basic rules of inheritance by breeding which plant?
Peas
He tracked seven traits, including seed shape and flower colour, across roughly 28,000 plants in a monastery garden.
Q 04What is the basic unit of heredity called?
Gene
Each one is a stretch of DNA, and humans carry roughly 20,000 of them coding for proteins.
Q 05Which type of blood cell carries oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body?
Red cells
The iron-rich molecule hemoglobin inside them grabs the oxygen, and it is also what makes blood look red.
Q 06What is the largest organ of the human body?
Skin
It makes up around 16 percent of body mass and is the outer layer of the integumentary system.
Q 07Mushrooms, yeasts and molds all belong to which biological kingdom?
Fungi
Unlike plants they cannot photosynthesize, and their cell walls are made of chitin, the same material as an insect's shell.
Q 08A caterpillar turns into a butterfly through a process called what?
Metamorphosis
In butterflies the resting stage is called a chrysalis, and some moths remember things they learned as caterpillars.
Q 09Which structure do plant cells have that animal cells lack, giving them their rigid shape?
Cell wall
It sits outside the membrane, and its stiffness is what lets a plant stem stand up without a skeleton.
Q 10What are animals like birds and mammals called, which keep a steady body temperature?
Warm-blooded
Scientists prefer terms like endothermic and homeothermic, since some fish and even a few insects can heat themselves too.
Q 11What is the twisted-ladder shape of a DNA molecule called?
Double helix
Watson and Crick proposed it in 1953, relying heavily on X-ray images made by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling.
Q 12Ocean tides are caused mainly by the gravitational pull of which object?
The Moon
The Sun helps too: when the Sun, Moon and Earth line up at new and full moon, the extra-large tides are called spring tides.
Q 13Earth's outer core is a liquid layer made mostly of nickel and which other metal?
Iron
Swirling currents in that molten metal are what generate Earth's magnetic field, the reason compasses point north.
Q 21A whole number greater than 1 that can only be divided evenly by 1 and itself is called what?
Prime
The number 2 is the only even one; every other even number can be divided by 2.
Q 22What is 25 percent of 200?
50
Percent means "per hundred", so 25 percent is a quarter, and a quarter of 200 is 50.
Q 23What is the probability of rolling a 4 on a single fair six-sided die?
1/6
Each face is equally likely, so every single number has the same one-in-six chance on each roll, no matter what came before.
Q 24An angle that is larger than a right angle but smaller than a straight angle is called what?
Q 14Rock that forms when magma or lava cools and hardens is called what?
Igneous
Granite is the slow-cooled underground kind; basalt and obsidian form when lava cools quickly at the surface.
Q 15Which planet is the largest in our solar system?
Jupiter
More than 1,300 Earths could fit inside it, and its Great Red Spot is a storm bigger than our whole planet.
Q 16On the pH scale, what number is neutral, the same as pure water?
7
Lower numbers are acids like lemon juice, higher numbers are bases like baking soda solution, and each step is a tenfold change.
Q 17Which gas makes up about 78 percent of Earth's atmosphere?
Nitrogen
Oxygen is only about 21 percent; the third-biggest ingredient, argon, is under one percent.
Q 18What is the longest bone in the human body?
Femur
It runs from hip to knee, and by some measures it is also the strongest bone you have.
Q 19To two decimal places, what is the value of pi?
3.14
It is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter, and its digits go on forever without repeating.
Q 20What do the three interior angles of any triangle add up to?
180 degrees
The exterior angles, one at each corner, add up to 360 degrees instead, and that is true for every convex polygon.
Obtuse
The word comes from Latin for "blunt"; angles under 90 are acute, meaning sharp.
Q 25What is (-6) multiplied by (-4)?
24
Two negatives multiplied together always give a positive result; a negative times a positive gives a negative.
Q 26In a data set ordered smallest to largest, the value exactly in the centre is called what?
Median
With an even number of values there is no single center, so you average the two middle numbers.
Q 27Which formula gives the area of a circle with radius r?
πr²
The similar-looking 2πr is the distance around the circle, its circumference, not the space inside.
Q 28A comparison that shows how many times one quantity contains another, like 3 to 2, is called a what?
Ratio
When the two quantities have different units, like miles and hours, the comparison is usually called a rate instead.
Q 29In which Italian city did the Renaissance begin?
Florence
The wealthy Medici family paid for much of the art, and Greek scholars fleeing the fall of Constantinople brought ancient texts with them.
Q 30Which German inventor built Europe's first movable-type printing press in the 1400s?
Johannes Gutenberg
Movable type already existed in East Asia, but his press, oil-based ink and metal type made mass-producing books practical.