Q 01/05

The 'lead' in a pencil is actually made of what?

A) Charcoal sticks

B) Pressed coal dust

C) Powdered lead

D) Graphite and clay

Answer · why

D) Graphite and clay

Pencil cores are graphite and clay, fired together; more clay makes a harder grade. The 'lead' name stuck because 16th-century chemists took the black...

Q 02/05

Which country's pure graphite find in the 1500s kicked off the pencil industry?

A) France

B) China

C) Germany

D) England

Answer · why

D) England

England: the Borrowdale deposit in Cumbria, found in the 1500s, was so pure it was sawn straight into sticks. The Crown seized the mines because graph...

Q 03/05

Which shape is the most common for a wooden pencil?

A) Triangular

B) Round

C) Hexagonal

D) Square

Answer · why

C) Hexagonal

Hexagonal is the standard shape: six flat sides stop a pencil rolling off the desk and let a wooden slat be cut with little waste.

Q 04/05

What colours are the ferrule (the metal band) on a classic Ticonderoga pencil?

A) Silver and red

B) Blue and gold

C) Black and white

D) Green and yellow

Answer · why

D) Green and yellow

The rest of the pencil is the familiar yellow, with a soft pink eraser on top.

Q 05/05

The word 'Crayola' combines the French word for chalk with a suffix meaning what?

A) Bright

B) Colourful

C) Oily

D) Little

Answer · why

C) Oily

Oily: Alice Binney, a former schoolteacher, joined French craie (chalk) to 'ola' from oleaginous, meaning oily. The first Crayola crayons went on sale...