Eighth Grade Trivia Questions
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
8correct to beat the crowd
100 free Eighth Grade trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
These 77 eighth grade trivia questions follow what most 8th graders in the United States actually study. The history half runs from Jamestown and the Mayflower Compact through the Revolution, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis and Clark, the War of 1812, the Trail of Tears, the Civil War and Reconstruction. Science covers atoms and the periodic table, cells, photosynthesis, Newton's laws, density, pH, plate tectonics and the layers of the Earth. Math questions touch the Pythagorean theorem, slope, primes, order of operations, circles and scientific notation, and the reading list includes The Outsiders, The Giver, Anne Frank's diary, To Kill a Mockingbird and Romeo and Juliet. Every question is multiple choice and written so a 13- or 14-year-old who has been paying attention can get it, with a few harder ones to separate the honor roll from the rest. It works as a class warm-up, a review game before a test, a family quiz night with a middle schooler in the house, or a nostalgic check on how much you still remember from eighth grade. Answers were checked against encyclopaedia and primary sources, and each question shows its explanation and citation after you answer.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what city was the U.S. Constitution written and signed in 1787?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia hosted the Constitutional Convention at Independence Hall from May to September 1787; the national capital of Washington, D.C. did not yet exist.
Q 02How many articles does the original U.S. Constitution contain?
Seven
The Constitution has seven articles: Articles I to III create the legislative, executive and judicial branches, and Article VII sets out how the document would be ratified.
Q 03How many times has the U.S. Constitution been amended?
27
The Constitution has 27 amendments; the 27th, on congressional pay, was ratified in 1992, more than 200 years after Congress proposed it.
Q 04What is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the Constitution?
The Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights was ratified on December 15, 1791; James Madison drafted the amendments and steered them through the House in 1789.
Q 05Which amendment protects freedom of speech, religion, the press, assembly and petition?
First
The First Amendment, ratified in 1791, guarantees those five freedoms; the Second covers the right to bear arms and the Fifth guards against self-incrimination.
Q 06The Fourth Amendment protects people against what?
Unreasonable searches and seizures
The Fourth Amendment bars unreasonable searches and seizures: police generally need a warrant based on probable cause, a rule born of British searches of colonial homes.
Q 07The Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4 of which year?
1776
The Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration on July 4, 1776, and fifty-six delegates eventually signed the engrossed copy, most of them on August 2.
Q 08Who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence?
Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson wrote most of it between June 11 and 28; Franklin and Adams were on the drafting committee with him.
Q 09Per the Declaration of Independence, people have the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of what?
Happiness
The Declaration names 'the pursuit of Happiness'; the phrase echoes John Locke's natural rights of life, liberty and property, with the last term changed.
Q 10Which battles in April 1775 were the first of the American Revolutionary War?
Lexington and Concord
The fighting at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 opened the war; Paul Revere's ride the night before warned that British troops were marching from Boston.
Q 11Which 1781 siege was the decisive final victory of the Revolutionary War?
Yorktown
Cornwallis surrendered his army at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, after de Grasse's fleet blocked escape by sea; Britain then opened peace talks.
Q 12Which country signed a Treaty of Alliance with the American revolutionaries in 1778?
France
The alliance came after the American victory at Saratoga convinced Europe the rebels could win.
Q 13Which 1783 peace agreement ended the Revolutionary War and recognised American independence?
Treaty of Paris
The Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783, with Britain recognising American independence and ceding land west to the Mississippi; another Treaty of Paris in 1898 ended the Spanish-American War.
Q 21Which secretary of state largely wrote the 1823 Monroe Doctrine?
John Quincy Adams
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams drafted most of the Monroe Doctrine, which President Monroe delivered in his December 2, 1823 annual message to Congress.
Q 22Which president signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 that led to the Trail of Tears?
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act on May 28, 1830; about 60,000 people from the Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw and Choctaw nations were forced west, and thousands died.
Q 23What was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas, founded in 1607?
Jamestown
Q 14What cargo did the Sons of Liberty dump into Boston Harbor in December 1773?
Tea
Disguised as Native Americans, they boarded the Dartmouth and other ships in protest at the Tea Act; Britain answered with the Intolerable Acts.
Q 15Which port city did the United States originally try to buy before the Louisiana Purchase?
New Orleans
New Orleans controlled the mouth of the Mississippi, the outlet for western farmers' goods; American envoys went to buy the city and were offered the whole territory instead.
Q 16Roughly how much did the United States pay for the Louisiana Purchase?
$15 million
The United States paid about $15 million for some 828,000 square miles, under three cents an acre; the deal nearly doubled the country's size.
Q 17Which river did Lewis and Clark follow to reach the ocean in November 1805?
Columbia
The Corps of Discovery canoed down the Columbia River and sighted the ocean in November 1805, wintering at Fort Clatsop near its mouth before turning home.
Q 18Sacagawea, who helped the Lewis and Clark expedition as an interpreter, belonged to which nation?
Shoshone
Sacagawea was Lemhi Shoshone, captured by Hidatsa raiders as a girl; she travelled with her husband Toussaint Charbonneau and their newborn son, Jean Baptiste, born February 1805.
Q 19Which building did the British burn in August 1814 during the War of 1812?
The White House
British troops burned the White House in August 1814 after routing American militia at Bladensburg; Dolley Madison had Stuart’s portrait of Washington carried to safety.
Q 20Francis Scott Key wrote 'The Star-Spangled Banner' after watching the bombardment of which fort in 1814?
McHenry
Key watched the British bombard Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbour on September 13–14, 1814; his poem, set to an English club tune, became the official anthem in 1931.
Jamestown was founded on May 14, 1607 by the Virginia Company; most settlers died in the 'Starving Time' winter of 1609–10, yet the colony survived and served as Virginia's capital until 1699.
Q 24Which crop, introduced by John Rolfe, made the Virginia colony profitable?
Tobacco
Tobacco grown from a sweeter Caribbean strain became Virginia's cash crop; Rolfe also married Pocahontas in 1614, bringing a few years of peace with the Powhatan.
Q 25The Mayflower Compact of 1620 was the first governing document of which colony?
Plymouth
The Mayflower Compact established self-government for Plymouth Colony; 41 of the Mayflower's 102 passengers signed it on November 11, 1620 while anchored off Cape Cod.
Q 26Where did the American Civil War begin in April 1861?
Fort Sumter
Confederate guns opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston harbour on April 12, 1861; the garrison surrendered the next day and the war lasted until 1865.
Q 27Who was president of the Confederate States during the Civil War?
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis, a former U.S. senator from Mississippi, was chosen provisional president in February 1861 and led the Confederacy of eleven seceded states until its collapse in 1865.
Q 28Where did Robert E. Lee surrender to Ulysses S. Grant in April 1865?
Appomattox Court House
Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia on April 9, 1865, in the parlor of Wilmer McLean's house.
Q 29Which amendment, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery in the United States?
13th
It was the first of the three Reconstruction Amendments; the 15th (1870) barred denying the vote on account of race.
Q 30The Reconstruction era that followed the Civil War ended with a political compromise in which year?
1877
The Compromise of 1877 settled the disputed 1876 election: Rutherford B. Hayes took the presidency and the last federal troops left the South, ending Reconstruction.