Grades 11–12 trivia is a good excuse to test the details people usually wave past with “I basically remember this.”
These 80 questions move from quantitative reasoning into science, history, geography, literature, technology, and evidence-checking.
Math and Quantitative Reasoning
- Solve 2x²−8=0.
Answer: x=±2. - What is log₂(32)?
Answer: 5. - What is the slope of 3x−2y=8?
Answer: 3/2. - Simplify (x³)².
Answer: x⁶. - What is i²?
Answer: −1. - What is 15% of 360?
Answer: 54. - Mean of 10,12,14,16,18?
Answer: 14. - Probability of drawing a heart from 52 cards?
Answer: ¼. - What does a function’s domain contain?
Answer: Allowed input values. - What does its range contain?
Answer: Possible output values.
Science
- What is the SI unit of force?
Answer: Newton. - What is momentum?
Answer: Mass times velocity. - What is power?
Answer: Rate of energy transfer or work. - What particle determines atomic number?
Answer: Proton. - What is an isotope?
Answer: Atoms of one element with different neutron counts. - What is oxidation?
Answer: Loss of electrons. - What is reduction?
Answer: Gain of electrons. - What is an enzyme?
Answer: A biological catalyst. - What process makes RNA from DNA?
Answer: Transcription. - What process builds a polypeptide using mRNA information?
Answer: Translation.
Earth and Environment
- What drives most weather on Earth?
Answer: Energy from the Sun. - What layer contains most weather?
Answer: Troposphere. - What is albedo?
Answer: The fraction of incoming radiation a surface reflects. - What is an aquifer?
Answer: A permeable body of rock or sediment that stores and transmits groundwater. - What is eutrophication?
Answer: Nutrient enrichment that can cause excessive plant or algal growth and oxygen depletion. - What is biodiversity?
Answer: Variety of living organisms in an area or across scales. - What is a carbon sink?
Answer: A reservoir that absorbs more carbon than it releases over a period. - What is weathering?
Answer: Breakdown of rock in place. - What is erosion?
Answer: Transport of weathered material. - What is deposition?
Answer: Settling of transported sediment.
History and Civics
- What document begins “We the People”?
Answer: U.S. Constitution. - What are its first ten amendments called?
Answer: Bill of Rights. - What amendment abolished slavery except as punishment for crime after conviction?
Answer: Thirteenth Amendment. - What amendment guarantees equal protection of the laws?
Answer: Fourteenth Amendment. - What amendment prohibits denying the vote on account of sex?
Answer: Nineteenth Amendment. - What 1929 economic collapse preceded the Great Depression?
Answer: Wall Street crash, within a broader economic crisis. - What international organization was founded in 1945?
Answer: United Nations. - What was the Cold War?
Answer: A prolonged geopolitical rivalry centered on the U.S. and Soviet Union and their allies. - What is judicial review in U.S. constitutional law?
Answer: Court review of laws or government actions for constitutionality. - What is federalism?
Answer: Division of governmental authority between national and subnational governments.
World Geography and Economics
- What is GDP?
Answer: Value of final goods and services produced within an economy over a period. - What is inflation?
Answer: A sustained rise in the general price level. - What is opportunity cost?
Answer: Value of the next-best alternative forgone. - What is a tariff?
Answer: A tax on imports. - What is an exchange rate?
Answer: Price of one currency in terms of another. - What is a trade deficit?
Answer: When imports of goods and services exceed exports over a period. - What canal connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas?
Answer: Suez Canal. - What canal connects the Atlantic and Pacific across Panama?
Answer: Panama Canal. - What strait separates Spain and Morocco?
Answer: Strait of Gibraltar. - What is a landlocked country?
Answer: A country without direct access to the open ocean.
Literature and Communication
- What is a soliloquy?
Answer: A speech revealing a character’s thoughts, traditionally delivered while alone or as if alone. - What is dramatic irony?
Answer: Audience knows something a character does not. - What is an unreliable narrator?
Answer: A narrator whose account cannot be accepted at face value. - What is juxtaposition?
Answer: Placing things together for comparison or contrast. - What is diction?
Answer: A writer’s word choice. - What is syntax?
Answer: Arrangement of words and phrases into sentences. - What is a concession in an argument?
Answer: Acknowledging a valid point from another position. - What is a rebuttal?
Answer: A response challenging an opposing argument or evidence. - What is synthesis?
Answer: Combining ideas or evidence from multiple sources into a new analysis. - What is a citation?
Answer: A reference identifying the source of information or ideas.
Technology and Information
- What does API stand for?
Answer: Application programming interface. - What does DNS do?
Answer: Maps domain names to network addressing information. - What is encryption?
Answer: Transforming information so unauthorized readers cannot readily understand it without the key. - What is two-factor authentication?
Answer: Authentication using two different factors. - What is metadata?
Answer: Data describing other data. - What is an open-source software license designed to permit?
Answer: Use, inspection, modification, and redistribution under its terms. - What is a database?
Answer: An organized collection of data designed for retrieval and management. - What is a spreadsheet formula?
Answer: An expression that calculates a value from data or other cells. - What is version control?
Answer: A system for tracking and managing changes to files or code. - Why does HTTPS not prove a webpage’s claims are true?
Answer: It protects the connection; it does not verify factual accuracy.
Evidence Challenge
- Risk rises from 2% to 3%. Relative increase?
Answer: 50%; absolute increase is 1 percentage point. - A poll samples only one neighborhood to represent a whole city. Concern?
Answer: Sampling bias or poor representativeness. - A study has no control group. What can be harder to establish?
Answer: Whether the observed change is attributable to the tested intervention rather than other factors. - What is a placebo?
Answer: An inactive or comparison treatment designed to resemble the intervention in relevant ways. - What is peer review?
Answer: Evaluation of scholarly work by other experts before or after publication, depending on the process. - Does peer review guarantee a study is correct?
Answer: No. - Why distinguish statistical significance from practical importance?
Answer: A detectable effect can still be too small to matter in practice. - A chart omits units. Why is that a problem?
Answer: You cannot correctly interpret the magnitude being shown. - What is cherry-picking?
Answer: Selecting only evidence that supports a preferred conclusion while ignoring relevant contrary evidence. - Best first move when a viral claim cites no source?
Answer: Find the original evidence or a reliable source before repeating it as fact.
How to Play
Use a few rounds at a time and allow scratch paper. The questions are recreational enrichment, not a measure of whether someone is “on grade level.”
References and Corrections
The rebuild favors stable definitions and specifically scoped historical claims over changing rankings. Please report a correction with the question number.
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