This seasons trivia quiz has 50 free questions with answers and covers everything that makes spring, summer, autumn and winter happen and everything humans have built around them. The science comes first: the 23.4-degree tilt that causes the seasons, why perihelion falls in January, seasonal lag, what solstice and equinox actually mean, and why the South Pole is colder than the North. Then it widens out to the way cultures count the year, from meteorological seasons and the Celtic cross-quarter days to India's six ritus and the eight seasons of the Sami, plus the folklore of Groundhog Day, Midsummer, harvest moons, dog days and Indian summers. There are questions on autumn leaf chemistry, cherry-blossom season, hibernation, Persephone, Stonehenge, Vivaldi, Haydn and Frankie Valli's Four Seasons, and even Uranus, where a season lasts 21 years. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer has been checked against a reliable source.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the primary cause of Earth's seasons?
The tilt of the planet's axis
The axis is tilted about 23.4 degrees to the orbital plane and keeps pointing toward Polaris all year, so each hemisphere takes turns leaning toward the Sun.
Q 02By roughly how much is Earth's axis tilted relative to its orbital plane?
23.4°
Astronomers call it the obliquity of the ecliptic. It wobbles between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees over a 41,000-year cycle, one of the Milankovitch cycles that pace ice ages.
Q 03In which month is Earth closest to the Sun?
January
Perihelion falls in early January and aphelion in July, so distance actually works against the Northern Hemisphere's seasons. The difference in sunlight is only about 7 percent.
Q 04Why is Earth as a whole slightly warmer when it is farthest from the Sun?
The Northern Hemisphere has more land, which warms faster
Northern summer coincides with aphelion, and land heats up more readily than sea, so the planet's average temperature ticks up despite the extra distance.
Q 05The word 'solstice' comes from Latin words meaning what?
Sun and stand still
At the solstices the Sun's daily path reaches its northern or southern limit and appears to pause before reversing. A rare English calque, 'sunstay,' dates from the 16th century.
Q 06'Equinox' comes from Latin words meaning what?
Equal night
At the two equinoxes the Sun is directly overhead at the Equator and both poles sit on the terminator, so day and night are split evenly between the hemispheres.
Q 07Around what date does the Northern Hemisphere tip most toward the Sun?
June 21
That is the June solstice, the longest day north of the Equator. The Southern Hemisphere's maximum comes around December 21.
Q 08Why are July and August, not June, usually the hottest months in the Northern Hemisphere?
Seasonal lag as oceans absorb and release heat
The most direct sunlight arrives in May, June and July, but the oceans take weeks to warm, so temperatures peak after the solstice.
Q 09Under meteorological reckoning, on what date does spring begin in the Northern Hemisphere?
March 1
Meteorologists split the year into four three-month blocks starting March 1, June 1, September 1 and December 1. Australia and Russia prefer this system.
Q 10On the traditional Celtic calendar, which festival on November 1 marked the start of the coldest season?
Samhain
Imbolc opened spring on February 1, Beltane summer on May 1 and Lughnasadh autumn on August 1. Samhain is the Celtic root of Halloween.
Q 11How many seasons, or ritus, does the traditional Hindu calendar recognize?
Six
They are Vasanta, Grishma, Varsha (monsoon), Sharada, Hemanta and Shishira. Some Aboriginal Australian peoples and the Sami count up to eight.
Q 12The ancient Egyptian year had three seasons defined by what?
The flooding of the Nile
They were flood, growth and low water. Many tropical regions today still count just two seasons, wet and dry.
Q 13Ecologists sometimes use a six-season model for temperate regions. Which of these is one of its seasons?
Prevernal
The six are prevernal, vernal, estival, serotinal, autumnal and hibernal, keyed to biological events rather than calendar dates.
Q 21On what date is Groundhog Day observed?
February 2
It descends from Candlemas lore, and a German tradition called the same day 'Badger Day.' Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow in 2026, promising six more weeks of winter.
Q 22In the German tradition before Groundhog Day, which animal's Candlemas shadow predicted four more weeks of cold?
A badger
Pennsylvania German settlers swapped in the groundhog and stretched the forecast to six weeks.
Q 23Midsummer celebrations were Christianized as the June 24 feast of which biblical figure?
John the Baptist
In Anglo-Saxon England summer began on May 9 and peaked at Midsummer on June 24. Sweden treats the holiday so seriously there have been proposals to make it the National Day.
Q 14Which of Earth's polar regions is consistently colder during its dark season, and why?
The Antarctic, because it sits on a continent far from moderating oceans
The North Pole floats on the Arctic Ocean, whose water buffers its temperature extremes.
Q 15Before the 16th century, what word was commonly used in English for the season we now call autumn?
Harvest
Other West Germanic languages still use their version of it. 'Fall' comes from old Germanic roots and survives mainly in North American English.
Q 16The yellow and orange colors of autumn leaves come from which pigments?
Carotenoids
Xanthophylls and beta-carotene are in the leaf all summer, hidden by chlorophyll's green. Reds, by contrast, come from anthocyanins made fresh in autumn.
Q 17Which pigment gives autumn leaves their red color?
Anthocyanin
Unlike the yellows, it is produced only as the leaf's sugar breakdown changes in autumn. Brown leaves come from green and red pigments combining as cells die.
Q 18Which full moon is the one farmers traditionally named for bringing in the crops?
The one nearest the autumnal equinox
Also called the barley moon or full corn moon, it can fall up to two weeks either side of September 22 or 23.
Q 19What is an 'Indian summer'?
A warm, dry spell in autumn
The term's origin is uncertain; it may refer to the hazy autumn hunting weather in regions inhabited by Native Americans.
Q 20The 'dog days' of summer were named for the rising of which star?
Sirius
Hellenistic astrology blamed the Dog Star for heat, drought, lethargy, fever and mad dogs. The Greeks called it Seirios, the Scorcher.
Q 24In Greek myth, Hades tricked Persephone into eating what, binding her to the underworld?
Pomegranate seeds
Her mother Demeter's grief while she is below was the ancient explanation for winter, and her return brought spring.
Q 25Stonehenge is aligned toward the sunrise on which day?
The summer solstice
The same axis points to sunset on the winter solstice. Warren Field in Aberdeenshire, corrected each midwinter, is considered the world's oldest lunisolar calendar.
Q 26Each concerto in Vivaldi's Four Seasons is paired with what kind of poem?
A sonnet
Each concerto has three fast-slow-fast movements and each poem breaks into three matching sections, which is why many think Vivaldi wrote the poems himself.
Q 27In what year were Vivaldi's Four Seasons published?
1725
They appeared as part of Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, The Contest Between Harmony and Invention. A 2019 'recomposition' called For Seasons used algorithms to portray climate change.
Q 28Frankie Valli's group The Four Seasons took its name from what?
A bowling alley
They failed an audition for the lounge at a New Jersey bowling establishment in 1960 and kept the name anyway. 'Sherry' became their first number one in 1962.
Q 29Which of these was a number one single for The Four Seasons?
Sherry
Bob Gaudio wrote it, and it was followed to number one by 'Big Girls Don't Cry,' 'Walk Like a Man,' 'Rag Doll' and, in 1976, 'December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night).'
Q 30Haydn's oratorio The Seasons, first performed in 1801, is based on a long English poem by whom?
James Thomson
Thomson's The Seasons was published in 1730. Baron van Swieten adapted it so freely that scholars say the libretto often loses touch with the poem.