PE Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
97 free PE trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Physical education is more than running laps, and these 43 PE trivia questions prove it. They are written for gym teachers, sports-day quizzes and rainy-day PE lessons, with plenty an 8- to 12-year-old can answer: how many players are on a soccer, basketball, volleyball or baseball team, how high a basketball hoop is, what a hat-trick is, why the marathon is 26.2 miles, and how many bones and muscles the body uses to do all of it. There are harder ones for older students and staff too: who invented basketball with peach baskets and volleyball as 'mintonette', where the beep test came from, why the ancient Greek gymnasium was named after nakedness, what the five Olympic rings mean, what the decathlon's ten events are, and where pickleball and ultimate were invented. Fitness basics get their turn as well: what a push-up works, what 'aerobic' means, what the Presidential Fitness Test measured, and how fast a resting heart beats. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and sports governing-body sources, and each question shows its explanation and source once you answer, so it is safe to use in class.
30 of 97 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many players does each team have on the field in a game of soccer?
11
11. One of them must be the goalkeeper, and a side can lose players and carry on: a match is only abandoned when a team drops below seven.
Q 02What is the time a soccer referee adds to each half for delays called?
Stoppage time
Stoppage time. Each half lasts 45 minutes on the clock, but the referee alone decides how much to add for injuries, substitutions and other delays, and the figure shown as the half runs out is only a minimum.
Q 03In basketball, which violation is called when a player moves with the ball without dribbling?
Travelling
Travelling. The original 1891 rules were stricter still: a player could not run with the ball at all and had to throw it from the spot where it was caught.
Q 04Who invented basketball in December 1891 to keep his students busy indoors over winter?
James Naismith
James Naismith. Basketball was born in a Massachusetts gym, yet the instructor who wrote its thirteen rules was himself born in Canada.
Q 05The first basketball goals hung about 10 feet up on which part of a gym?
Balcony railing
The balcony railing. It happened to be about 10 feet up, still the height of the rim today, and when spectators leaning over it began swatting shots away, backboards were added to stop them.
Q 06What did the first basketball players throw the ball into?
A peach basket
A peach basket. Its bottom was left in at first, so after every score someone had to fetch the ball back out by hand before play could go on.
Q 07In volleyball, which attacking hit usually finishes a team's three touches?
A spike
A spike. A side gets only three touches to send the ball back, so the classic pattern is a dig to control it, a set to place it and a spike smashed over the net.
Q 08Which sport was invented in 1895 as "Mintonette", a gentler alternative to basketball for older men?
Volleyball
Volleyball. At an early demonstration a professor remarked that the players were really just volleying the ball back and forth, and the new name replaced the inventor's own.
Q 09In baseball, what is a batter awarded after taking four pitches outside the strike zone?
A walk
A walk. Officially a base on balls, it once took nine wayward pitches to earn one; the count was cut in stages until it settled at four in 1889.
Q 10How long is a marathon?
26.2 miles
26.2 miles. The odd figure dates from the 1908 London Olympics, where the course was reportedly stretched to start at Windsor Castle and finish in front of the royal box; it became the standard in 1921.
Q 11In which modern country is Marathon, the ancient battlefield that gave the long-distance race its name?
Greece
Greece. In legend a messenger ran all the way from the battlefield to announce victory over the Persians in 490 BC, then dropped dead, and the race was created to honour the run.
Q 12What do the five Olympic rings represent?
Continents
The five continents. No ring stands for any one of them, though: the colours were chosen, with the flag's white, because every nation's flag of the day used at least one.
Q 13The Olympic motto, in English, begins with which three words?
Faster, Higher, Stronger
Faster, Higher, Stronger. In Latin it is Citius, Altius, Fortius: the founder of the modern Games borrowed it from a priest friend's school sports, and in 2021 a fourth word was added, Together.
Q 21What is a typical resting heart rate for an adult, in beats per minute?
About 72
About 72. Anything from 60 to 100 is normal for an adult, and a lower figure usually signals fitness: well-trained athletes can rest at 40 to 60 beats a minute.
Q 22Push-ups mainly work the triceps, the front of the shoulders and which other muscles?
Pectorals
Pectorals. These chest muscles push while the midsection holds the body rigid, and bringing the hands closer together makes the triceps work harder.
Q 23Swimming, jogging and cycling are classed as which kind of exercise?
Aerobic
Aerobic. The word means "requiring oxygen", and Air Force doctor Kenneth Cooper built "aerobics" on it for his 1968 fitness book, though he disliked the term and argued against using it as the title.
Q 14The Olympic torch relay from Olympia to the host city began at which Games?
Berlin 1936
Berlin 1936. The relay is no ancient custom: a flame first burned at an Olympic stadium only in 1928, and the run from Olympia was added for the Games held in Nazi Germany.
Q 15The ancient Olympic Games were held every four years at Olympia in honour of which god?
Zeus
Zeus. The Games were part of his religious festival, and a sacred truce was proclaimed for them so that athletes and pilgrims could travel to Olympia in safety.
Q 16In which city were the first modern Olympic Games held in 1896?
Athens
Athens. Winners there received silver medals, not gold, and the first of them was an American, James Connolly, who took the triple jump on the opening day.
Q 17Which sporting venue takes its name from a Greek word meaning "naked"?
Gymnasium
Gymnasium. Greek athletes trained without clothes, and their gymnasia doubled as places of learning, which is why the same word means a secondary school in German.
Q 18Which is the longest bone in the human body?
The femur
The femur. It is also the thickest bone, so it usually takes a serious trauma to break one, and from its length alone scientists can estimate how tall a person was.
Q 19Which single muscle is the largest in the human body?
The gluteus maximus
The gluteus maximus. Its bulk is what holds the human trunk upright: other primates have much flatter hips and cannot stay standing erect for long.
Q 20The heart is a muscle about the size of what?
A closed fist
A closed fist. Like any muscle it responds to training: the hearts of endurance athletes who exercise for more than an hour a day often grow noticeably larger than normal.
Q 24The 'beep test' run in PE classes worldwide has students shuttle back and forth over what distance?
20 metres
20 metres. Devised by the Canadian researcher Luc Léger, the test keeps shortening the gap between beeps, and the level a runner reaches before dropping out gives an estimate of endurance.
Q 25Which US president founded a council on youth fitness after a study found American children far less fit than Europeans?
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower. More than half the American children tested had failed a simple strength-and-flexibility check that only about one European child in twelve failed, and the school fitness test grew from his council.
Q 26Which Olympic event's winner is traditionally called the "world's greatest athlete"?
Decathlon
The decathlon. The title goes back to 1912, when Sweden's King Gustav V is said to have told the winner, Jim Thorpe, that he was the greatest athlete in the world.
Q 27Which three sports make up a triathlon, in order?
Swim, bike, run
Swim, bike, run. The sport grew out of a 1970s fitness craze: the first race to be called a triathlon, in San Diego in 1974, drew 46 entrants, and by 2000 it was an Olympic event.
Q 28In World Dodgeball Federation play, what brings an eliminated teammate back?
A catch
A catch. A clean catch pays twice, putting the thrower out as a teammate returns, but a fumbled attempt sends the catcher off instead.
Q 29Pickleball was invented in 1965 on Bainbridge Island in which US state?
Washington
Washington. A father improvised the game one summer afternoon for children who complained they were bored, and in 2022 the state made it its official sport.
Q 30What is the ball in pickleball made of?
Perforated plastic
Perforated plastic. The game was cobbled together from leftovers, so its first ball was simply a borrowed toy ball full of holes, hit across a badminton court.