49 true or false trivia questions

False.

Bats can see: they have small eyes with very sensitive vision that works well in dim light.

Source: U.S. Geological Survey https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/are-bats-blind

False.

Sea stars, often called starfish, are not fish; they are echinoderms, related to sea urchins and sand dollars.

Source: NOAA Ocean Service https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/starfish.html

False.

Dolphins are mammals: they breathe air with lungs, are warm-blooded and feed their young milk.

Source: NOAA Ocean Service https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/dolphin.html

True.

Hummingbirds can hover in one place and can also fly backward and even upside down.

Source: Smithsonian's National Zoo https://nationalzoo.si.edu/migratory-birds/hummingbirds

True.

Birds descend from theropods, the group of meat-eating dinosaurs that also included T. rex, so scientists count them as living dinosaurs.

Source: Natural History Museum, London https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-dinosaurs-evolved-into-birds.html

False.

A shark's skeleton is made of cartilage, the same bendy tissue as your ears and the tip of your nose.

Source: NOAA Fisheries https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/12-shark-facts-may-surprise-you

True.

Male seahorses carry the young in a pouch and give birth to them.

Source: NOAA Ocean Service https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seahorse.html

True.

The skin covers the whole body and is its largest organ.

Source: MedlinePlus (National Library of Medicine) https://medlineplus.gov/ency/imagepages/8912.htm

True.

A newborn has about 300 bones; many of them fuse as the child grows, leaving the 206 bones of an adult.

Source: National Institutes of Health (NIAMS) https://www.niams.nih.gov/health-topics/educational-resources/health-lesson-learning-about-bones

False.

Human blood is always red; veins only look blue because of the way skin filters light.

Source: National Institutes of Health (NIGMS) https://nigms.nih.gov/biobeat/2019/02/roses-are-red-and-so-is-blood

True.

Blood flows through four chambers: the right and left atria and the right and left ventricles.

Source: MedlinePlus (National Library of Medicine) https://medlineplus.gov/ency/imagepages/19612.htm

False.

People use all of their brain, although not every part is active at the same moment.

Source: BrainFacts.org (Society for Neuroscience) https://www.brainfacts.org/thinking-sensing-and-behaving/thinking-and-awareness/2014/the-ten-percent-myth

True.

About 60 percent of an adult man's body is water; babies have even more, about 78 percent at birth.

Source: U.S. Geological Survey https://www.usgs.gov/water-science-school/science/water-you-water-and-human-body

True.

Venus takes 243 Earth days to spin around once but only 225 Earth days to travel around the Sun.

Source: NASA https://science.nasa.gov/venus/facts/

False.

Saturn's rings are the most spectacular, but Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune have rings too.

Source: NASA https://science.nasa.gov/saturn/facts/

True.

Earth passes closest to the Sun in early January; the seasons come from the tilt of Earth's axis, not from its distance to the Sun.

Source: National Weather Service https://www.weather.gov/fsd/season

True.

Iron minerals in the Martian dirt rust, and that makes the surface look red.

Source: NASA https://science.nasa.gov/mars/facts/

False.

The largest is Olympus Mons on Mars, which stands more than 25 miles high, far taller than Mount Everest.

Source: NASA https://science.nasa.gov/mars/facts/

False.

A light-year is a distance: how far light travels in one year, about 6 trillion miles.

Source: NASA Space Place https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/light-year/en/

True.

The other planets carry the names of Greek and Roman gods; the name Earth comes from an old Germanic word meaning the ground.

Source: NASA https://science.nasa.gov/earth/facts/

False.

The far side gets sunlight too; as the Moon orbits Earth, different parts of it are lit at different times.

Source: NASA https://science.nasa.gov/moon/facts/

False.

The wall cannot be seen from the Moon, and it is hard to see even from orbit without a powerful camera lens.

Source: NASA https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/great-wall/

True.

Measurements show the Moon drifts about 1.5 inches (nearly 4 centimeters) farther from Earth every year.

Source: NASA https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/moon/five-things-to-know-about-the-moon/

False.

At the station's height, Earth's gravity is still about 90 percent as strong as on the ground; astronauts float because they are falling around Earth.

Source: NASA https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/for-kids-and-students/what-is-microgravity-grades-5-8/

True.

Crew members on long space station missions grow up to 3 percent taller, then return to their normal height back on Earth.

Source: NASA https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/spinal-ultrasound-investigation/

False.

Lightning often strikes the same place again, especially tall objects; the Empire State Building is hit about 23 times a year on average.

Source: National Weather Service https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-myths

True.

Lightning can heat the air around it to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, about five times hotter than the surface of the Sun.

Source: National Weather Service https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-science-overview

False.

Mauna Kea in Hawaii rises more than 10,210 meters from its base deep under the Pacific, which is taller base to peak; Everest has the highest summit above sea level.

Source: NOAA Ocean Service https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/highestpoint.html

False.

There is no such thing as earthquake weather; earthquakes happen about equally in hot, cold and rainy weather.

Source: U.S. Geological Survey https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/there-earthquake-weather

False.

Hurricanes and other tropical cyclones spin counterclockwise north of the equator.

Source: National Hurricane Center https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/

True.

Air pressure is lower higher up, so water boils at a lower temperature: about 203 degrees Fahrenheit at 5,000 feet instead of 212 at sea level.

Source: U.S. Geological Survey https://www.usgs.gov/water-science-school/science/facts-about-water

False.

Ice is less dense than liquid water, which is why ice cubes and icebergs float.

Source: U.S. Geological Survey https://www.usgs.gov/water-science-school/science/water-density

True.

Water is denser than air, so sound moves much faster through it.

Source: NOAA Ocean Service https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sound.html

True.

Antarctica gets very little rain or snow, so it counts as a desert even though it is covered in ice.

Source: NASA Space Place https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/antarctica/en/

False.

As of April 2026, only 28.7 percent of the global seafloor had been mapped with modern high-resolution sonar.

Source: NOAA Ocean Exploration https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/ocean-fact/explored/

True.

A rainbow appears on the opposite side of the sky from the Sun, so you need the Sun at your back and rain in front of you.

Source: National Weather Service https://www.weather.gov/fgz/Rainbow

True.

Counting its islands, Canada's coastline measures 243,042 kilometers, the longest in the world.

Source: Statistics Canada https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-402-x/2012000/chap/geo/geo01-eng.htm

False.

Washington chose the site but never lived there; John Adams was the first president to move in, in 1800.

Source: White House Historical Association https://www.whitehousehistory.org/educational-resources/designing-the-white-house-1792-1830

True.

The statue was a gift from the people of France to the United States, marking the two countries' alliance in the American Revolution.

Source: National Park Service https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/the-french-connection.htm

False.

It shows four: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

Source: National Park Service https://www.nps.gov/moru/index.htm

False.

The back holds no map, only a short label written along the bottom edge: "Original Declaration of Independence dated 4th. July 1776."

Source: National Archives https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration

False.

The only Viking Age helmet ever found preserved has no horns, and horns would have gotten in the way in battle.

Source: National Museum of Denmark https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/weapons/helmets/

False.

Einstein's 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics was given mainly for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect.

Source: NobelPrize.org https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1921/einstein/facts/

True.

Curie shared the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics and later won the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Source: NobelPrize.org https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1903/marie-curie/facts/

True.

The Titanic left Southampton on its maiden voyage on April 10, 1912, and sank on April 15 after striking an iceberg.

Source: NOAA https://www.noaa.gov/office-of-general-counsel/gc-international-section/rms-titanic-history-and-significance

True.

Peanuts are legumes, like peas and beans, even though the FDA classes them as a nut.

Source: USDA Agricultural Research Service https://www.ars.usda.gov/plains-area/gfnd/gfhnrc/docs/news-articles/2013/go-nuts/

False.

Potatoes were first domesticated in the Andes mountains of South America, thousands of years before they reached Europe.

Source: International Potato Center https://cipotato.org/potato/

False.

The banana plant is not a tree; it is a giant herbaceous plant with a stem that only looks like a trunk.

Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations https://www.fao.org/4/t0308e/t0308e03.htm

True.

The cacao tree produces the beans that are the raw material for chocolate.

Source: USDA Agricultural Research Service https://agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/2011/sep/cacao