Q 01/05

Which sport did physical education teacher James Naismith invent in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891?

A) Basketball

B) Volleyball

C) Baseball

D) Field hockey

Answer · why

A) Basketball

Basketball was first played with a soccer ball and a pair of peach baskets as goals. Naismith wrote the original 13 rules for his gym class.

Q 02/05

Which Australian capital city was purpose-built as a compromise between rival cities Sydney and Melbourne?

A) Brisbane

B) Canberra

C) Adelaide

D) Perth

Answer · why

B) Canberra

Canberra is an entirely planned city, grounded in a design by American architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin. It settled a long d...

Q 03/05

Which branch of mathematics takes its name from an Arabic word in the title of a 9th-century book?

A) Geometry

B) Calculus

C) Algebra

D) Trigonometry

Answer · why

C) Algebra

Algebra comes from al-jabr, an Arabic term that originally referred to the surgical setting of broken bones. The mathematician al-Khwarizmi used it in...

Q 04/05

Which structures, nicknamed the powerhouse of the cell, use aerobic respiration to generate ATP?

A) Ribosomes

B) Chloroplasts

C) Golgi apparatus

D) Mitochondria

Answer · why

D) Mitochondria

Mitochondria got the powerhouse nickname from a 1957 Scientific American article by Philip Siekevitz. Their folded inner membrane increases the surfac...

Q 05/05

Which school subject takes its name from Ancient Greek words meaning 'Earth' and 'write'?

A) Geology

B) Geography

C) Geometry

D) Archaeology

Answer · why

B) Geography

Geography literally means Earth writing, and the Greek scholar Eratosthenes may have coined the term more than 2,200 years ago.