Down Syndrome
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40 free Down Syndrome trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Down syndrome is the most common chromosomal condition doctors diagnose, yet much of what people think they know about it is out of date. Health care, schooling, work and public visibility have all changed within a single lifetime. This quiz covers the science in plain language: what happens inside the cells, how the condition is screened for and confirmed, and which health issues doctors watch for. It also covers the history of the name, the awareness traditions seen around the world each year, and the actors, models, athletes and campaigners with Down syndrome who have collected a long list of firsts. It is written for students, families, teachers and anyone marking an awareness day who wants facts rather than myths. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches something.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Down syndrome is caused by an extra copy of which human chromosome, the smallest of them all?
21
Chromosome 21 holds only about 1.5 percent of a cell's DNA, yet a third copy of it, known as trisomy 21, changes how the body and brain develop.
Q 02World Down Syndrome Day is observed each year in which month?
March
March is the third month, a nod to the three copies of one chromosome, and the United Nations has observed the day every year since 2012.
Q 03Where does the 'Down' in Down syndrome, a condition detailed in a landmark 1866 paper, come from?
A British doctor's surname
A British doctor's surname is the source: John Langdon Down published his description in 1866, and the name says nothing about mood or ability.
Q 04Which mismatched clothing marks World Down Syndrome Day because its shape resembles a chromosome?
Socks
Socks in bright or odd pairs are the best-known way to mark the day, an idea promoted around the world as the Lots of Socks campaign.
Q 05Which 1989 ABC drama was the first TV series with a major character who has Down syndrome?
Life Goes On
Life Goes On was created around Chris Burke, an actor with Down syndrome, after ABC executives saw him in a TV movie; he played Corky Thatcher for four seasons.
Q 06Lauren Potter, who has Down syndrome, played cheerleader Becky Jackson on which TV series?
Glee
Glee made Lauren Potter well known enough that President Obama appointed her in 2011 to a committee advising the White House on intellectual disabilities.
Q 07In 2020 Chris Nikic became the first person with Down syndrome to finish which endurance event?
An Ironman triathlon
An Ironman triathlon took Chris Nikic 16 hours and 46 minutes in Florida: a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a full marathon, back to back.
Q 08Which doll line added its first doll with Down syndrome in 2023, designed with a US charity's help?
Barbie
Barbie gained the doll in April 2023 with help from the National Down Syndrome Society, and in 2024 Mattel followed it with a Black Barbie with Down syndrome.
Q 09In 2018 Lucas Warren became the first 'spokesbaby' with Down syndrome for which US food brand?
Gerber
Gerber chose Lucas from about 140,000 entries, ninety years after an unfinished charcoal sketch of a baby first became the face of the brand.
Q 10Nearly half of babies with Down syndrome have a defect in which organ, often repaired by surgery?
The heart
The heart is affected so often that paediatricians advise an echocardiogram for every baby with Down syndrome, and better surgery has helped life expectancy climb.
Q 11Which rare form of Down syndrome means only some of a person's cells carry the extra chromosome?
Mosaic
Mosaic Down syndrome is the least common type, at about 2 percent of cases, with some cells holding the usual 46 chromosomes and others 47.
Q 12Which type of Down syndrome, about 3 percent of cases, is the only one that can run in families?
Translocation
Translocation means the extra chromosome material is attached to another chromosome, and in about a third of these cases a parent carries the rearrangement.
Q 13Most Down syndrome begins with a slip in which type of cell division, before a baby is conceived?
Meiosis
Meiosis halves the chromosome count to make eggs and sperm, and when one pair fails to split, a cell is left holding a spare copy to pass on.
Q 21Which factor is the only one clearly linked to a higher chance of having a baby with Down syndrome?
The mother's age
The mother's age matters: the chance rises from about 1 in 350 at age 35 to 1 in 100 at 40, yet about half of these babies are born to women under 35.
Q 22Scientists in which country first showed, in 1959, that an extra chromosome causes Down syndrome?
France
France was home to Jérôme Lejeune, Marthe Gautier and Raymond Turpin, who published the finding together; Gautier later said her part in the lab work had been pushed aside.
Q 23Which country persuaded the WHO in 1965 to drop an offensive old name for Down syndrome?
Mongolia
Q 14Which prenatal test confirms Down syndrome by drawing fluid from around the baby with a needle?
Amniocentesis
Amniocentesis is usually done between 15 and 20 weeks of pregnancy and, unlike a screening test, gives a diagnosis that is nearly 100 percent accurate.
Q 15Which lab test confirms Down syndrome after birth by photographing and sorting a baby's chromosomes?
A karyotype
A karyotype groups the chromosomes by size, number and shape, so the extra one shows up as a set of three where a pair should be.
Q 16The nuchal translucency scan for Down syndrome measures fluid behind an unborn baby's what?
Neck
Neck fluid is measured by ultrasound between 11 and 14 weeks of pregnancy, and the result is only ever a chance, never a diagnosis.
Q 17Newer Down syndrome screens read bits of a baby's DNA in a sample of the pregnant woman's what?
Blood
Blood drawn from the arm is enough because the placenta sheds fragments of DNA into the pregnant woman's bloodstream.
Q 18Hypotonia, common in babies with Down syndrome and a reason many walk later, means low what?
Muscle tone
Muscle tone that is low adds to delays in rolling over, sitting up and crawling, though children with Down syndrome can still take part in sport like other children.
Q 19Adults with Down syndrome often get which brain condition, tied to a gene on the extra chromosome?
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease is common because the extra chromosome carries the gene for amyloid precursor protein, which builds up as plaques in the brain.
Q 20Which gland is often underactive in children with Down syndrome and treated with hormone tablets?
The thyroid
The thyroid helps regulate temperature and energy, so health providers recommend checking it at birth, at six months and then every year for life.
Mongolia objected to a label built on the name of its people, four years after nineteen scientists had called the term embarrassing and misleading.
Q 24Trisomy 18, the most common trisomy at birth after Down syndrome, also bears which scientist's name?
Edwards
Edwards syndrome honours John Hilton Edwards, the English geneticist who first described it in 1960, a year after the cause of Down syndrome was found.
Q 25Saying 'a child with Down syndrome', not 'a Down syndrome child', follows which style of wording?
People-first language
People-first language puts the person before the diagnosis, and the same advocacy guides say people have Down syndrome rather than suffer from it.
Q 26Which annual event did the National Down Syndrome Society start in 1995 to celebrate awareness?
Buddy Walk
Buddy Walk events now take place in towns and cities across the United States, led by a flagship walk in New York City.
Q 27In the 1987 essay 'Welcome to Holland', the plane was meant to land in which country?
Italy
Italy stands for the parenthood people expect; writer Emily Perl Kingsley, whose son Jason has Down syndrome, used the detour to describe raising a disabled child.
Q 28Which cancer is 10 to 15 times more common in children with Down syndrome than in other children?
Leukemia
Leukemia stands out against a striking pattern: people with Down syndrome have a lower risk of most solid cancers, including those of the lung and breast.
Q 29Many people with Down syndrome have a single deep crease running across which part of the body?
The palm
The palm usually shows two main creases; a single one appears in close to half of people with Down syndrome, but also in a few percent of everyone else.
Q 30Brushfield spots, pale flecks common in people with Down syndrome, appear on which part of the eye?
The iris
The iris shows the spots most clearly in lighter eyes, and they carry the name of Thomas Brushfield, the physician who described them in a 1924 thesis.