Q 01/05

Civil engineering got its name in the 18th century to set it apart from which older kind of engineering?

A) Mechanical

B) Military

C) Mining

D) Naval

Answer · why

B) Military

Military engineering is the only branch considered older than civil engineering. In Britain the army trained its engineers at Woolwich, while King's C...

Q 02/05

Army doctor William Gorgas made the Panama Canal buildable by waging war on which disease-carrying insect?

A) Tsetse flies

B) Sandflies

C) Mosquitoes

D) Body lice

Answer · why

C) Mosquitoes

Mosquitoes spread the yellow fever and malaria that threatened the canal's workforce. Gorgas had already used the same methods in Havana, where draini...

Q 03/05

The 22-yard surveyor's chain devised by Edmund Gunter in 1620 matches the length of which sports feature?

A) A cricket pitch

B) A tennis court

C) A bowling lane

D) A fencing piste

Answer · why

A) A cricket pitch

A cricket pitch is exactly one chain long, a relic of the days when land was measured with Gunter's 100-link chain. Ten square chains made an acre, wh...

Q 04/05

Which US city reversed the flow of its river in 1900 so that sewage no longer drained into its drinking water?

A) Chicago

B) Cleveland

C) Milwaukee

D) Detroit

Answer · why

A) Chicago

Chicago dug a 28-mile canal that made its river flow out of Lake Michigan instead of into it. The diluted sewage now ran inland, down the Des Plaines ...

Q 05/05

The Leaning Tower of Pisa began to tilt during its 12th-century construction because of what?

A) An earthquake

B) Uneven stonework

C) Soft ground

D) A lightning strike

Answer · why

C) Soft ground

Soft ground beneath a foundation just three metres deep let the tower sink on one side. Remedial work between 1993 and 2001, which included 870 tonnes...