100 free Government trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
53 free government trivia questions with answers. This government trivia quiz is a civics class in fifty questions. The American half covers the three branches and their checks and balances, the 535 members of Congress and their qualifications, the nine justices, the Electoral College and contingent elections, how amendments pass and how many there are, vetoes, filibusters, impeachment, the Cabinet, the line of succession, the designated survivor and the shutdown law nobody has heard of. The world half asks about the oldest legislature on Earth, the Westminster model and the first prime minister, the Knesset, the Bundestag and the Diet, the five UN veto powers, Switzerland's seven-headed head of state and the cantons that still vote by show of hands, Magna Carta, absolute monarchies and the longest constitution ever written. Easy questions suit students and citizenship-test candidates looking for civics trivia questions and answers; hard ones will stretch political junkies. Every answer has been checked against the encyclopaedia entry for each institution, and each question shows its source once you have answered.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many branches make up the United States federal government?
Three
Legislative, executive and judicial, each designed to check the other two.
Q 02How many voting members does the US Congress have in total?
535
That is 100 senators plus 435 representatives; add three electors for D.C. and you get the 538 of the Electoral College.
Q 03How many senators does each US state send to Washington?
Two
Their six-year terms are staggered so that roughly a third of the Senate is up for election every two years.
Q 04How many justices sit on the US Supreme Court?
Nine
The number was last changed in 1869; it had been as low as six and as high as ten before that.
Q 05How many electoral votes does a candidate need to win the US presidency?
270
There are 538 electors in all, since the 23rd Amendment gave the District of Columbia three.
Q 06The first ten amendments to the US Constitution are known collectively as what?
The Bill of Rights
James Madison drafted them; Congress approved twelve articles in 1789 and the states ratified ten of them in 1791.
Q 07Which US official presides over the Senate and may vote only to break a tie?
The vice president
In the vice president's absence the president pro tempore, traditionally the majority party's most senior senator, takes the chair.
Q 08Which amendment limits a US president to being elected twice?
The 22nd
It was a reaction to Franklin D. Roosevelt's four election wins, and came into force in 1951.
Q 09What fraction of both houses of Congress is needed to override a presidential veto?
Two-thirds
If the president simply sits on a bill as Congress adjourns, that is a pocket veto and cannot be overridden at all.
Q 10Who is second in the presidential line of succession?
The Speaker of the House
The president pro tempore of the Senate is third, then the Cabinet secretaries in order of their departments' creation.
Q 11Which 1803 Supreme Court case established the power of judicial review?
Marbury v. Madison
Chief Justice John Marshall's court struck down part of the Judiciary Act of 1789 to make the point.
Q 12Which chamber of Congress has the sole power to impeach federal officials?
The House
The Senate then holds the trial, and a two-thirds vote of members present is required to convict.
Q 13How many executive departments have heads in the US Cabinet?
15
George Washington's first Cabinet had just four department heads: Jefferson, Hamilton, Knox and Randolph.
Q 21What is the minimum age to serve in the US Senate?
30
Representatives need only be 25; senators must also have been citizens for nine years.
Q 22How many votes are normally needed to invoke cloture and end a Senate filibuster?
60
That is three-fifths of the Senate; the 'nuclear option' in 2013 and 2017 cut it to a simple majority for nominations only.
Q 23Who holds the record for the longest solo Senate filibuster, at 24 hours and 18 minutes in 1957?
Strom Thurmond
He read state laws and George Washington's Farewell Address in full to stall the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which passed anyway.
Q 14Where do both houses of the US Congress meet?
The United States Capitol
The Constitution itself was framed at Independence Hall in Philadelphia in 1787.
Q 15The 'checks and balances' of the US system are meant to keep which three institutions in line?
The executive, legislature and judiciary
The idea is that each branch can restrain the others: the president vetoes, Congress overrides, and the courts strike down.
Q 16How many times has the US Constitution been amended since it took effect in 1789?
27
The most recent, on congressional pay, was proposed in 1789 and only ratified in 1992.
Q 17What share of the states must ratify a constitutional amendment for it to take effect?
Three-fourths
That is 38 of the 50 states; the proposal itself needs two-thirds of both houses of Congress or a convention called by two-thirds of the states.
Q 18Which state became the ninth to ratify the Constitution in June 1788, putting it into effect?
New Hampshire
Rhode Island had refused even to send delegates to the convention that wrote it.
Q 19Which state refused to send delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention?
Rhode Island
Twelve states were represented; 39 framers eventually signed the document on September 17, 1787.
Q 20Which 1929 law fixed the size of Congress's lower chamber at 435 members?
The Reapportionment Act
It was briefly 437 from 1959 to 1963 while Alaska and Hawaii were absorbed.
Q 24Who was the first US president to be impeached?
Andrew Johnson
The House charged him in 1868 chiefly for sacking War Secretary Edwin Stanton in defiance of the Tenure of Office Act.
Q 25Who in 2021 became the first federal officer to be impeached twice?
Donald Trump
His second Senate trial began twenty days after his first term had already ended.
Q 26Who presides over the Senate when a president is tried on impeachment charges?
The chief justice
The Constitution says so explicitly, to keep the vice president, who would inherit the office, out of the chair.
Q 27Which president revived the practice of delivering the State of the Union in person, in 1913?
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Jefferson had dropped the speech in 1801 as too monarchical, and presidents sent written reports for over a century.
Q 28Which Cabinet member customarily skips the State of the Union address, and why?
The designated survivor, to preserve the line of succession
Since 2003 each chamber of Congress has also named its own absent member.
Q 29Which two states split their electoral votes rather than awarding them winner-take-all?
Maine and Nebraska
Everywhere else the whole slate of electors goes to the ticket that wins the state.
Q 30If no presidential candidate wins an Electoral College majority, who chooses the president?
The House
The Senate picks the vice president in the same 'contingent election'.