World Scholar's Cup General Knowledge — practice questions
66 free MCQs with worked solutions. Tap any question for the answer + explanation, or practice them all in the app.
Practice World Scholar's Cup General Knowledge in the app →Kepler inherits decades of hand-recorded planetary positions and builds his laws on them. Those records were mKepler cracks the puzzle of changing orbital speed using one planet whose orbit strays furthest from a circle.A student draws a planet's yearly path as a neat circle and is told the shape is wrong. The correct shape is:In that corrected drawing, where should the student place the Sun?An astronomer states an orbit's size as the distance from the centre of the ellipse to one end. She is quotingTwo orbits share the same major axis, but one has its foci much further apart. That difference is measured by A comet sweeps a broad wedge near the Sun and a long thin one far away, each in a month. This equal sweeping iA comet's speed is tracked all the way around its orbit. It moves fastest when it is:A planet on a perfectly circular orbit is timed at many points along the path. Its speed would be:Kepler discovered his third law in the year:Earth takes one year to travel once around the Sun. That stretch of time is called its:An astronomer wants solar system distances in handy units and takes the Earth to Sun distance as one. That uniA newly found body orbits with a semimajor axis of 50 astronomical units. Its orbital period is about:That newly found body, 50 astronomical units out, would sit beyond the orbit of:A rocky chunk orbits with a semimajor axis of 3 astronomical units. Its orbital period is about:A rocky body on a 3 astronomical unit orbit would be found between:An astronomer wants to apply the period and distance law to Earth itself. That law applies to:Two spacecraft drift twice as far apart. The gravitational pull between them depends on their masses and theirIn the gravitation formula, the fixed number written as G is known as the:A rocket must be fast enough never to fall back to Earth. That speed is called the:Knowing an orbit's shape and the equal area rule, an astronomer can work out a planet's:An astronomer can only measure how long a distant body takes to circle the Sun. She finds its distance using tA factory owner in 1890 replaces his steam plant with a power source that also lights the building. That sourcBefore that switch, the machinery of the first industrial age had been driven by:Workers stand at fixed stations while belts carry parts past them for fitting. This arrangement is the:A new hire learns his whole job in a day and knows he is easily replaced. Mechanisation had made factory work:A mill hand works fourteen hours and still cannot cover the rent. Alongside long hours, workers earned:A village family moves to a mill town, joining thousands doing the same. This swelling of cities is called:Asked why they left the countryside, most nineteenth century migrants said they had come to:A city lays pipes running in from the surrounding countryside. Those pipes brought in:Cleaner water, steadier food and better medical care reach an industrial city. Together these:The first nation to industrialise also led the way in ending child labour. That nation was:A child working in a British mill in 1820 was protected by a law capping her working day at:A British textile mill in 1834 may no longer employ any child below the age of:A Prussian factory in 1840 may not employ any child below the age of:Under that same Prussian law, a fifteen year old's shift was capped at:Children finally left the factory floor for the schoolroom once governments required:Weavers in one town organise as weavers rather than alongside every local worker. They have formed:The American Federation of Labor was originally called the Federation of Organized Trades and:In Britain and the United States, unions grew without a political party behind them, which means they developeBy the middle of the nineteenth century, utopian socialism had been largely replaced by:The French economist and philosopher who first used that term was:The influential party formed in 1875 that advocated laws to improve working-class conditions was the:A peasant in 1750 lived much as his grandfather had. Before the nineteenth century, life is described as changStrangers gather in a station, dance for two minutes and scatter. Sociologists call this kind of voluntary, unThousands of fans pack into one stadium for a concert. That grouping in close proximity is best called a:Millions of readers follow the same news story from different cities, never meeting. Sociologists call that grEarly theorists in the 1890s explained crowd behaviour mainly by treating crowds as:After a hurricane, neighbours take supplies from a flooded shop and see it as survival while outsiders call itThe sociologists who developed that theory of new norms in unfamiliar situations were:Under that theory, people in an unfamiliar situation first:A sociologist argues several conditions must stack up before a crowd acts at all. That functionalist account iAnother sociologist credits people in crowds as rational actors deciding to gather. His account is the:Staff at a university protest a bill cutting their bargaining rights on campus. That is a social movement at wAn organisation campaigning for one state to leave the union is operating at which level?Bodies campaigning worldwide on poverty, trafficking and genetically modified food operate at which level?Several organisations working on the same issue together make up a social movement:All of a society's social movement industries taken together form its social movement:A campaign opens by naming the problem clearly so anyone can grasp it. That is:Two movements with similar problems merge their goals into one. That process is called:How many aspects does that alignment process have?A movement builds a link to uninvolved individuals and unorganised groups. That aspect is:A movement broadens its core ideas so they appeal more widely and mobilise more people. That is:Two movements agree to promote each other even though their immediate goals differ. That is:A movement that has won its original demand completely revises its goals to stay relevant. That is:Frames are described as helping individuals identify and understand social events and work out which: