These 5th grade trivia questions follow eight fifth grade units: decimals and place value, fractions, volume and the coordinate grid, matter, food webs, Earth's water, air and land, the Sun and stars, and United States history up to the Constitution.
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What fifth grade units are covered
The science follows the fifth grade Next Generation Science Standards: matter too small to see, food webs, Earth's systems, and why the Sun outshines other stars. The math is grade 5 arithmetic: decimals to thousandths, fractions with unlike denominators, volume and the coordinate grid. History runs from the first peoples to the Constitution.
5th grade trivia questions and answers printable
After ten questions the card offers Print question sheet, a sheet of 20. Open More options there for Topic, to stay on one unit, and for Print answer key, which repeats each reason. Scored round, under the question, runs 20 questions marked at the end. The list below gives every question with its answer.
Tips
After the first ten, open More options and untick Shuffle questions and choices: each topic then runs from easy to hard.
Keep scrap paper out for Adding and multiplying fractions: 2 1/2 × 1 1/2 is slow in the head.
Questions and answers
What is a good trivia question for 5th grade?
One with a single right answer from a fifth grade unit. For example: frost forms when water vapor turns straight into ice, so what is that change called? The answer is deposition. It sits in Matter and how it changes.
What subjects are in 5th grade trivia?
Math, science and history. The math is decimals, fractions, volume and the coordinate grid. The science is matter, food webs, Earth's systems, and the Sun and stars. The history is the United States from the first peoples to the Constitution.
How many delegates signed the Constitution?
39. The Constitution was signed by 39 of the 55 delegates on September 17, 1787. The question is in US history to the Constitution, the topic with the most stretch questions by our estimate.
A plank measures 7.846 feet. How long is it to the closest tenth of a foot?Answer: 7.8 feet. Source: Wikipedia: Rounding
A puppy weighs 5.38 pounds. What is its weight to the closest full pound?Answer: 5 pounds. Source: Wikipedia: Rounding
A runner finishes a sprint in 4.72 seconds. Which digit shows the tenths of a second?Answer: 7. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
Four snails crawl 0.5, 0.45, 0.405 and 0.054 of a meter. Which snail went farthest?Answer: The one that crawled 0.5. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
How do you write "three and forty-two thousandths" as a decimal?Answer: 3.042. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
How is three tenths written as a decimal?Answer: 0.3. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
How many tenths make one whole?Answer: 10. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
In 444.4, the 4 in the hundreds place is worth how many times the 4 in the tenths place?Answer: 1,000 times. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
In the number 6.254, what is the value of the digit 5?Answer: 5 hundredths. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
What is 0.4 × 0.2?Answer: 0.08. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
What is 0.6 + 0.3?Answer: 0.9. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
What is 10 to the third power, also written 10 × 10 × 10?Answer: 1,000. Source: Wikipedia: Exponentiation
What is 10 × 4.7?Answer: 47. Source: Wikipedia: Power of 10
What is 2.4 × 1.5?Answer: 3.6. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
What is 3.6 + 2.75?Answer: 6.35. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
What is 45.6 ÷ 10?Answer: 4.56. Source: Wikipedia: Power of 10
What is 5 − 1.25?Answer: 3.75. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
What is 7.2 ÷ 0.9?Answer: 8. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
Which number is 3 × 100 + 4 × 1 + 7 × 0.01?Answer: 304.07. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
Which row puts its four decimals in order, smallest first?Answer: 0.305, 0.35, 0.5, 0.53. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal
Adding and multiplying fractions 20
A baker scoops 7 quarter-cups of oats. How many cups is that?Answer: 1 3/4 cups. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
A recipe needs 3/4 cup of flour. How much flour does half the recipe need?Answer: 3/8 cup. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
Five yards of ribbon are cut into 8 equal pieces. How long is each piece?Answer: 5/8 yard. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
How many 1/4-pound servings are in 3 pounds of trail mix?Answer: 12. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
How many half-foot pieces can be cut from a board 5 feet long?Answer: 10. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
What is 1 1/2 + 2 3/4?Answer: 4 1/4. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
What is 1/2 of 10?Answer: 5. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
What is 1/3 ÷ 2?Answer: 1/6. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
What is 2 1/2 × 1 1/2?Answer: 3 3/4. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
What is 2 × 1/3?Answer: 2/3. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
What is 2/3 + 1/4?Answer: 11/12. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
What is 2/3 × 3/4?Answer: 1/2. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
What is 3 − 1 2/5?Answer: 1 3/5. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
What is 5/6 − 1/2?Answer: 1/3. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
What is 5/8 + 3/4 − 1/2?Answer: 7/8. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
What is one fourth of one third?Answer: 1/12. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
What is the least common denominator of 1/3 and 1/4?Answer: 12. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
Which of these fractions is larger than 1/2?Answer: 5/8. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
Without working it out, how does 6 × 3/4 compare with 6?Answer: It is less than 6. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
You walk 1/2 mile and then 1/8 mile more. How far have you walked?Answer: 5/8 mile. Source: Wikipedia: Fraction
Volume and the coordinate grid 18
A box has a volume of 40 cubic units. Its base is 4 units by 2 units. How tall is it?Answer: 5 units. Source: Wikipedia: Volume
A box is 10 inches long, 5 inches wide and 4 inches tall. What is its volume?Answer: 200 cubic inches. Source: Wikipedia: Volume
A cube has edges of 3 centimeters. What is its volume?Answer: 27 cubic centimeters. Source: Wikipedia: Cube
A cube has edges that are each 1 unit long. What is its volume?Answer: 1 cubic unit. Source: Wikipedia: Volume
A prism has a base with an area of 12 square units and a height of 5 units. What is its volume?Answer: 60 cubic units. Source: Wikipedia: Volume
A robot on a grid starts at (1, 6), rolls 5 squares right and then 3 squares down. Where does it stop?Answer: (6, 3). Source: Wikipedia: Cartesian coordinate system
A toy chest is 5 feet long, 2 feet wide and 3 feet tall. How much space is inside?Answer: 30 cubic feet. Source: Wikipedia: Volume
An L-shaped block is built from a 2 × 3 × 4 box and a 2 × 3 × 2 box. What is its total volume?Answer: 36 cubic units. Source: Wikipedia: Volume
How far apart are the points (1, 2) and (1, 7)?Answer: 5 units. Source: Wikipedia: Cartesian coordinate system
How many cubic centimeters are in one liter?Answer: 1,000. Source: Wikipedia: Litre
How many faces does a rectangular prism, such as a shoebox, have?Answer: 6. Source: Wikipedia: Cuboid
If every edge of a cube is doubled, its volume becomes how many times as large?Answer: 8 times. Source: Wikipedia: Cube
The points (1, 1), (1, 4), (5, 4) and (5, 1) are joined in order. Which shape do they make?Answer: A rectangle that is not a square. Source: Wikipedia: Cartesian coordinate system
To plot the point (3, 5), how many units do you move along the x-axis from the origin?Answer: 3. Source: Wikipedia: Cartesian coordinate system
Which of these is a unit of volume?Answer: Cubic centimeter. Source: Wikipedia: Volume
Which of these points lies on the y-axis?Answer: (0, 4). Source: Wikipedia: Cartesian coordinate system
Which of these statements about shapes is true?Answer: Every square is a rectangle. Source: Wikipedia: Square
Which point is 2 units to the right of the y-axis and 3 units above the x-axis?Answer: (2, 3). Source: Wikipedia: Cartesian coordinate system
Matter and how it changes 19
A sealed jar holds a block of ice. After the ice melts, what has happened to the total mass inside the jar?Answer: It has stayed the same. Source: Wikipedia: Conservation of mass
At the surface of the Earth, toward which point does gravity pull objects?Answer: The center of the Earth. Source: Wikipedia: Gravity
Besides solids, liquids and gases, which fourth state can be observed in everyday life?Answer: Plasma. Source: Wikipedia: State of matter
Burning is a chemical reaction between a fuel and which gas from the air?Answer: Oxygen. Source: Wikipedia: Combustion
Frost forms when water vapor turns straight into ice. What is that change of state called?Answer: Deposition. Source: Wikipedia: Water
Materials that carry heat poorly, such as mineral wool, are used for what?Answer: Thermal insulation. Source: Wikipedia: Thermal conductivity and resistivity
Mixtures come in three forms: suspensions, colloids and which other?Answer: Solutions. Source: Wikipedia: Mixture
Rust forms when iron reacts with which gas, with water or damp air present?Answer: Oxygen. Source: Wikipedia: Rust
Salt dissolved in water can be recovered by letting the water evaporate. What kind of change is dissolving the salt?Answer: A physical change. Source: Wikipedia: Physical change
What are the tiny particles that are the building blocks of matter?Answer: Atoms. Source: Wikipedia: Atom
What is a change called in which substances are transformed into different substances?Answer: A chemical reaction. Source: Wikipedia: Chemical reaction
What is a group of two or more atoms held together by chemical bonds called?Answer: A molecule. Source: Wikipedia: Molecule
What is a material made of two or more substances that can be separated again by physical methods?Answer: A mixture. Source: Wikipedia: Mixture
What is a solution called when no more solute can be dissolved in it?Answer: Saturated. Source: Wikipedia: Solubility
What is the general name for the change of a liquid into a vapor?Answer: Vaporization. Source: Wikipedia: Water
What word names how well a substance dissolves in a solvent?Answer: Solubility. Source: Wikipedia: Solubility
Which French scientist of the late 1700s confirmed that mass is conserved in chemical reactions?Answer: Antoine Lavoisier. Source: Wikipedia: Conservation of mass
Which of these objects does a magnet pull on?Answer: An iron nail. Source: Wikipedia: Magnet
Which particles form a swarm around the nucleus of an atom?Answer: Electrons. Source: Wikipedia: Atom
Food webs and ecosystems 13
A food web starts with plants at trophic level 1. At which level does it typically finish, with the apex predators?Answer: Level 4 or 5. Source: Wikipedia: Trophic level
About how much of the world's oxygen production comes from phytoplankton?Answer: At least half. Source: Wikipedia: Phytoplankton
Consumers in a food chain are sorted into primary, secondary and which third group?Answer: Tertiary consumers. Source: Wikipedia: Consumer (food chain)
What do the primary consumers in a food chain eat?Answer: Plants or algae. Source: Wikipedia: Consumer (food chain)
What is a system of living things interacting with their environment called?Answer: An ecosystem. Source: Wikipedia: Ecosystem
What is an organism called that cannot make its own food and must take it from other living things?Answer: A heterotroph. Source: Wikipedia: Heterotroph
What is made by letting plant and food waste decompose, and is then used to feed soil?Answer: Compost. Source: Wikipedia: Compost
What is the first step in the flow of energy through an ecosystem?Answer: Photosynthesis. Source: Wikipedia: Energy flow (ecology)
What is the word for the bodies of dead animals that scavengers eat?Answer: Carrion. Source: Wikipedia: Scavenger
What sugar do plants make during photosynthesis?Answer: Glucose. Source: Wikipedia: Energy flow (ecology)
Where does the energy that moves through a food web come from first?Answer: The Sun. Source: Wikipedia: Energy flow (ecology)
Which of these is a decomposer?Answer: A fungus. Source: Wikipedia: Food chain
Which tiny drifting organisms form the base of ocean and freshwater food webs?Answer: Phytoplankton. Source: Wikipedia: Phytoplankton
Earth's water, air and land 16
The "bio" in biosphere comes from the Greek word for what?Answer: Life. Source: Wikipedia: Biosphere
The "hydro" in hydrosphere comes from the Greek word for what?Answer: Water. Source: Wikipedia: Hydrosphere
About how much of the mass of the atmosphere is in the troposphere?Answer: About 80 percent. Source: Wikipedia: Troposphere
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, what share of the world's total water is saline?Answer: Over 96 percent. Source: U.S. Geological Survey, Water Science School: Where is Earth's Water?
Ice and glaciers hold most of the Earth's fresh water. Where is most of the rest?Answer: Under the ground. Source: U.S. Geological Survey, Water Science School: How Much Water is There on Earth?
Scientists divide the atmosphere into how many main layers, from the troposphere up to the exosphere?Answer: Five. Source: Wikipedia: Atmosphere of Earth
Soil is a mixture. Which of these lists names things that are all part of soil?Answer: Minerals, water, gases and organic matter. Source: Wikipedia: Soil
What is a natural resource called if nature replaces it about as fast as people use it?Answer: A renewable resource. Source: Wikipedia: Renewable resource
What is the process of turning waste materials into new materials and objects called?Answer: Recycling. Source: Wikipedia: Recycling
Where is 99 percent of the world's glacial ice found?Answer: In the ice sheets of the polar regions. Source: Wikipedia: Glacier
Which gas makes up about 21 percent of dry air?Answer: Oxygen. Source: Wikipedia: Atmosphere of Earth
Which layer of the atmosphere lies directly above the troposphere?Answer: The stratosphere. Source: Wikipedia: Atmosphere of Earth
Which of Earth's systems is its frozen water: sea ice, snow, glaciers and frozen ground?Answer: The cryosphere. Source: Wikipedia: Cryosphere
Which of Earth's systems is its solid part: the rock?Answer: The geosphere. Source: Wikipedia: Geosphere
Which of Earth's systems is made up of all its water?Answer: The hydrosphere. Source: Wikipedia: Hydrosphere
Why are coal, petroleum and natural gas called non-renewable resources?Answer: They take so long to form. Source: Wikipedia: Fossil fuel
The Sun, the stars and shadows 15
At what time of day are outdoor shadows longest?Answer: Near sunrise and sunset. Source: Wikipedia: Shadow
The Earth turns once on its axis. How much time has passed?Answer: One day. Source: Wikipedia: Day
Follow the two front stars of the Big Dipper's bowl and you arrive at which star?Answer: Polaris. Source: Wikipedia: Big Dipper
How does NASA describe the size of our Sun among the stars?Answer: Average: there are smaller and larger stars. Source: NASA Space Place: How Does Our Sun Compare With Other Stars?
How many solstices are there each year?Answer: Two. Source: Wikipedia: Solstice
If the Sun is directly overhead, where does an object's shadow fall?Answer: Directly underneath it. Source: Wikipedia: Shadow
In the Northern Hemisphere, in which season are the evening stars of Orion easiest to see?Answer: Winter. Source: Wikipedia: Orion (constellation)
In which direction does the Earth rotate?Answer: Toward the east. Source: Wikipedia: Earth's rotation
On which two days of the year does the Sun rise almost exactly due east everywhere on Earth?Answer: The March and September equinoxes. Source: Wikipedia: Sunrise
Seen from Earth, how bright a star looks depends on how much light it gives off and on what else?Answer: Its distance from us. Source: Wikipedia: Apparent magnitude
The Sun's diameter is about how many times the Earth's?Answer: About 109 times. Source: Wikipedia: Sun
What is the Milky Way?Answer: The galaxy that contains our Solar System. Source: Wikipedia: Milky Way
What is the name for the moment each day when the Sun reaches the local meridian?Answer: Solar noon. Source: Wikipedia: Noon
When the North Pole tilts toward the Sun, what season is it in the Northern Hemisphere?Answer: Summer. Source: NASA Space Place: What Causes the Seasons?
Which instrument tells the time of day by where a shadow falls?Answer: A sundial. Source: Wikipedia: Sundial
US history to the Constitution 19
The Ancestral Puebloans built cliff dwellings in which region of the present-day United States?Answer: The Four Corners. Source: Wikipedia: Ancestral Puebloans
The Boston Tea Party was a protest against which act of Parliament?Answer: The Tea Act. Source: Wikipedia: Boston Tea Party
The first people to reach North America are believed to have walked from Asia across what?Answer: A land bridge between Siberia and Alaska. Source: Wikipedia: Peopling of the Americas
Hamilton, Madison and Jay wrote 85 essays in support of the Constitution under which shared pen name?Answer: Publius. Source: Wikipedia: The Federalist Papers
Haudenosaunee, the name of the Iroquois confederacy for itself, means what?Answer: Those who build the longhouse. Source: Wikipedia: Haudenosaunee
How many articles did the Constitution have when it was written?Answer: Seven. Source: Wikipedia: Constitution of the United States
How many of the 55 delegates signed the Constitution on September 17, 1787?Answer: 39. Source: Wikipedia: Constitutional Convention (United States)
How many states had ratified the Articles of Confederation when they came into force in 1781?Answer: All 13. Source: Wikipedia: Articles of Confederation
On June 11, 1776, Congress named a committee to prepare the Declaration of Independence. How many members did it have?Answer: Five. Source: Wikipedia: United States Declaration of Independence
On which date in 1492 did Columbus's ships first reach land in the Americas?Answer: October 12. Source: Wikipedia: Christopher Columbus
Three Americans signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783: John Adams, John Jay and who else?Answer: Benjamin Franklin. Source: Wikipedia: Treaty of Paris (1783)
Under which leader did a second group of colonists come to Roanoke?Answer: John White. Source: Wikipedia: Roanoke Colony
What covered the pole frame of a Haudenosaunee longhouse?Answer: Bark. Source: Wikipedia: Longhouses of the Indigenous peoples of North America
What was Paul Revere's trade?Answer: Silversmith. Source: Wikipedia: Paul Revere
Which country's army and navy helped the Americans win at Yorktown in 1781?Answer: France. Source: Wikipedia: Siege of Yorktown
Which delegate proposed the two-house Congress kept by the Connecticut Compromise?Answer: Roger Sherman. Source: Wikipedia: Connecticut Compromise
Which of these belonged to the New England group of colonies?Answer: Connecticut. Source: Wikipedia: Thirteen Colonies
Which queen and king agreed to pay for Columbus's voyage west?Answer: Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain. Source: Wikipedia: Christopher Columbus
With how many ships did Christopher Columbus leave Spain in August 1492?Answer: Three. Source: Wikipedia: Christopher Columbus
How this list was compiled
Written for this site; nothing was copied from another list. Every question, wrong choice and explanation is our own wording. The science topics follow the fifth grade list of the Next Generation Science Standards, read on 2026-10-02 (https://www.nextgenscience.org/search-standards?keys=&tid%5B%5D=105): matter made of particles too small to be seen, the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers and the environment, Earth's systems, and the brightness of the Sun and stars, shadows and the seasonal stars. The math topics (decimals and place value, fractions with unlike denominators, multiplying fractions, volume, the coordinate grid) are the usual grade 5 units; the standards document itself could not be opened that day. United States history from the first peoples to the Constitution is a common fifth grade course that those documents do not cover. Each fact agrees with a sentence in the page named and linked beside the question, read on 2026-10-02: an English Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org) for 136 questions, two pages of the U.S. Geological Survey's Water Science School for two, and two pages of NASA Space Place for two. Every extra claim in an explanation was read on the same page. The arithmetic answers in the three math topics were worked out by calculation and checked a second time by computer; the linked article explains the method. Left out on purpose: populations, records and anything else that changes, living people, and film, TV, brand and league names. Facts that the site's 3rd grade, 4th grade, middle school, kids, math, science and American history packs already ask were dropped or asked from another side, so no question here repeats one of theirs word for word as they stood on 2026-10-02. Levels are our estimate for a fifth grade class: easy is review, medium is grade level, hard is a stretch. Each topic is stored easiest first. Licence: own work