Q 01/05

Which river is generally listed as the longest in the world?

A) The Amazon

B) The Nile

C) The Yangtze

D) The Mississippi

Answer · why

B) The Nile

The Nile: the Amazon carries far more water, and some researchers argue the Amazon is longer, depending on how each river's length is measured.

Q 02/05

Which two men made the first documented ascent of Mount Everest in 1953?

A) George Mallory and Andrew Irvine

B) Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler

C) John Hunt and Charles Evans

D) Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary

Answer · why

D) Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary

Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary: a coded telegram got the news to London in time for it to break on 2 June 1953, the day of Queen Elizabeth II's cor...

Q 03/05

What is the world's largest hot desert?

A) The Sahara

B) The Gobi

C) The Kalahari

D) The Arabian

Answer · why

A) The Sahara

The Sahara: Antarctica is an even bigger desert, because deserts are defined by how little precipitation they get, not by heat.

Q 04/05

Which city was chosen as Australia's capital as a compromise between Sydney and Melbourne?

A) Adelaide

B) Brisbane

C) Canberra

D) Perth

Answer · why

C) Canberra

Canberra: while it was being built, the federal Parliament sat in Melbourne, and it only moved to Canberra in 1927.

Q 05/05

Which is the smallest sovereign state in the world by both area and population?

A) Monaco

B) Vatican City

C) San Marino

D) Liechtenstein

Answer · why

B) Vatican City

Vatican City: popes had refused to accept Italy's 1870 seizure of Rome, and the standoff ended only when Mussolini's government signed the 1929 Latera...