Cub Scouts
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40 free Cub Scouts trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Cub Scouting packs a lot of tradition into a den meeting: a two-finger sign, a motto every member knows by heart, ranks named after animals, and races where a block of wood becomes a car. Much of it goes back more than a century, to a British program built around a famous children's classic. This quiz covers the things Cub Scouts actually meet on the trail: the ranks and the grades they belong to, the uniform and its neckerchiefs, the Pinewood Derby and its sister races, pack leaders and their titles, and the history behind the names. It is written for den leaders and parents who need a ready game for a den meeting, a pack night or a campfire, and for Cub Scouts who want to test themselves. The opening questions are easy enough for the youngest dens, every answer comes with a short explanation, and the whole set can be played on a phone or printed.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which motto do Cub Scouts say, a phrase Robert Baden-Powell first gave his youngest members in 1916?
Do Your Best
Do Your Best has been the Cub motto since the first handbook of 1916, which told Cubs it meant trying with both hands, not just one. American Cub Scouts kept it when their promise changed in 2015.
Q 02Which Rudyard Kipling classic inspired Cub Scouting, lending it the words den and pack and a bear named Baloo?
The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book gave Robert Baden-Powell the theme for his junior section in 1916, and Kipling, a friend, agreed to the borrowing. Leaders in many countries still take the names of its animal characters.
Q 03What is the only thing that powers a Cub Scout Pinewood Derby car as it races down the track?
Gravity
Gravity does all the work, because the cars have no motors and simply roll down a sloping track. Builders chase speed by cutting friction and adding weight right up to the limit.
Q 04Which two colors are the official colors of Cub Scouting and give each pack's yearly banquet its name?
Blue and gold
Blue and gold are Cub Scouting's colors: blue stands for loyalty and trust, gold for warmth, cheer and good character. Families gather for the banquet to celebrate the year's awards.
Q 05The two raised fingers of the Cub Scout sign are said to look like which animal's ears?
Wolf
Wolf ears, pricked up and ready to listen, are what the two fingers show. The fingers also stand for the Scout Oath and the Scout Law, which Cub Scouts recite with the sign held high.
Q 06Lion, the youngest rank in Cub Scouting, is for children in which year of school?
Kindergarten
Kindergarten is where Cub Scouting now starts: Lion became a full part of the program in 2018 after a two-year pilot. The name revived a rank that had been dropped back in 1967.
Q 07How do Cub Scouts move their model sailboats along the water-filled channel in a Raingutter Regatta?
By blowing on them
By blowing on them, either directly or through a drinking straw, and never touching the boat. The course is a real ten-foot rain gutter filled to the top with water.
Q 08What is the highest rank in Cub Scouting, earned in fifth grade before a Cub Scout joins a troop?
Arrow of Light
Arrow of Light tops the Cub Scout trail, and its badge is one of the few that can still be worn on the uniform of an older Scout. Adults who earned it as children wear an embroidered knot version.
Q 09Which Cub Scout rank for first graders began in 1982 as a separate program with an orange T-shirt?
Tiger
Tiger began as Tiger Cubs, a program for seven-year-olds that sat beside the pack rather than inside it. Its dens only became a full part of the pack in 2001.
Q 10In Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories, which gave Cub Scouting its theme, what kind of animal is Bagheera?
Panther
Panther, and a black one: Bagheera is Mowgli's friend, protector and mentor in the stories. Cub packs in many countries give his name to one of their assistant leaders.
Q 11In Scouting America, what title goes to the adult who runs a pack's monthly meeting as master of ceremonies?
Cubmaster
Cubmaster is the title, and since 1976 the job has been open to women as well as men. A Scoutmaster does the same work for a troop of older Scouts.
Q 12In Cub Scouting, which name from Rudyard Kipling's stories is given to any leader a Cub Scout follows?
Akela
Akela can be a den leader, a parent or anyone older who guides a Cub Scout, which is why handbooks have carried a signature line for Akela. In the stories Akela leads the pack that adopts Mowgli.
Q 13In a Pinewood Derby kit, which everyday hardware items do Cub Scouts use as the car's four axles?
Nails
Nails came in the very first kits in 1953, when each Cub got four of them with four plastic wheels in a brown paper bag. A finished car must use every piece in the kit.
Q 21Under which title was Scouting America's youth magazine published from 1911 until its 2021 renaming?
Boys' Life
Boys' Life became Scout Life with the January 2021 issue, after girls had joined the programs. It publishes a separate edition for readers of Cub Scout age.
Q 22What powered the propeller-driven rockets that Cub Scouts raced along strings in a Space Derby?
Rubber bands
Rubber bands, wound a hundred turns or more, spun the propeller on each wooden rocket. Kits became hard to supply, and the national program was retired in 2022.
Q 23Which dry powder do Pinewood Derby builders dust on the axles so a Cub Scout's car rolls faster?
Graphite
Q 14Which of these belongs to the Cub Scout Six Essentials, the gear list for every hike and campout?
Whistle
Whistle is the one Cub Scout essential that the ten-item list for older Scouts leaves out. The other five are a first-aid kit, water bottle, flashlight, trail food and sun protection.
Q 15What title does an older Scout hold when helping an adult leader run a Cub Scout den's meetings?
Den chief
Den chief is the post, and in the earliest American dens a den chief ran everything with no adult in charge. Today the chief assists a grown-up den leader.
Q 16Since 2024, which Adventure, once a rank of its own, has been the first required one in every Cub Scout rank?
Bobcat
Bobcat used to be a badge earned just once, on joining; now every grade has its own version that gets harder as Cub Scouts grow. It first appeared in 1938, spelled as two words.
Q 17Cub Scouts learn the twelve points of the Scout Law; which point comes last, right after clean?
Reverent
Reverent closes the list, and Cub Scouts have recited all twelve points only since 2015. Before that they had a shorter code of their own.
Q 18From 1936 until 1967, what title did the Boy Scouts of America give the women who led Cub Scout dens?
Den mother
Den mother began as an optional role and only became a registered position in 1948. In 1967 it was renamed den leader and opened to men as well.
Q 19In which month, the anniversary of Scouting's 1910 US founding, do most Cub Scout packs hold their annual banquet?
February
February is banquet season because the Boy Scouts of America was founded on February 8, 1910. Packs mark it with food, skits, slideshows and the year's awards.
Q 20On which part of the uniform do Cub Scouts from Lion to Bear wear the adventure loops they earn?
Belt
Belt it is: each loop slides onto the Cub Scout belt as soon as an adventure is finished, with no waiting for a ceremony. Fourth and fifth graders earn pins instead.
Graphite is the usual lubricant, dusted wherever a wheel rubs an axle or the car body and friction can steal speed. Polishing those surfaces is the other half of the trick.
Q 24Which Girl Guide section, at first called Rosebuds, was set up as the girls' counterpart to Cubs?
Brownies
Brownies got the name in 1915, after the girls complained that they disliked being Rosebuds. It comes from an 1870 story by Juliana Horatia Ewing.
Q 25Which animal names the Scout section for children too young for Cubs that began in Northern Ireland in 1963?
Beavers
Beavers began as the Little Brothers and took the new name in 1966, one Robert Baden-Powell had once considered for his Cubs. Canada began testing its own version in 1971.
Q 26Webelos Scouts wear a neckerchief in which pattern, mixing Cub Scout colors with those of Scouts BSA?
Plaid
Plaid sets the fourth graders apart: its threads combine Cub Scouting's two colors with the red and green of Scouts BSA. The rank's name is explained as We'll Be Loyal Scouts.
Q 27In which traditional ceremony do Cubs squat in a circle and call out a greeting to their Scout leader?
Grand Howl
Grand Howl was devised by Robert Baden-Powell, with Cubs copying young animals greeting their leader at the Council Rock. He also wrote a version for young Girl Guides that imitated an owl.
Q 28What do American Cub Scouts call the ring that holds a neckerchief in place, known in Britain as a woggle?
Slide
Slide is the American word, and Cub Scouts may wear handmade ones in place of the official metal version. In the US, woggle is kept for the knotted ring earned by adults in Wood Badge training.
Q 29Which short code did Cub Scouts retire in 2015, when they began reciting the twelve-point Scout Law instead?
Law of the Pack
Law of the Pack was retired so every Scouting program would share the same words, after child-development specialists judged the Scout Oath and Law no harder to understand. The Cub Scout Promise went too.
Q 30In 1971 the Cub Scout Promise dropped which phrase, replacing it with a pledge to help other people?
To be square
To be square once meant to be honest and fair, but by the 1970s a square was someone rigidly conventional, so the line had to go.