50 GK Questions for Class 8

By Class 8, a one-word answer is rarely enough. Teachers and quiz rounds start asking “why” and “how”, and students are expected to know that some facts change. A country’s population ranking shifts, a constitution is amended, a mountain is measured again.

So the answers below are a little longer, usually two or three lines. The last section collects five GK answers that have changed in recent years. Old quiz books and websites still print the outdated versions.

Science and technology

1. What does the “G” in 4G and 5G stand for? Generation. Each generation of mobile network is faster than the last. 5G can also connect many more devices at once, which matters for things like smart meters and self-driving cars.

2. Why are LED bulbs more efficient than old filament bulbs? LED stands for Light Emitting Diode. A filament bulb makes light by heating a wire until it glows, so most of its electricity is wasted as heat. An LED turns far more of its electricity straight into light.

3. Who took the oldest surviving photograph? Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, a French inventor, around 1826–27. It shows the view from his window, and the exposure is thought to have taken hours, possibly days.

4. Why can’t sound travel through space? Sound is a vibration passed from particle to particle. Space is almost empty, with no air to carry the vibration, so it is silent.

5. What does friction produce? Heat. Rub your palms together quickly and you can feel it. Friction is also why car brakes and bicycle tyres wear down over time.

6. Which planet has a day longer than its year? Venus. It takes about 243 Earth days to spin once on its axis, but only about 225 Earth days to go around the sun.

7. Why is iron’s chemical symbol Fe? It comes from ferrum, the Latin word for iron. Several other symbols come from Latin too: Au for gold (aurum) and Ag for silver (argentum).

8. What does COVID-19 stand for? COronaVIrus Disease 2019. The number is the year the disease was first identified.

9. Which animal can live its whole life without drinking water? The kangaroo rat, which lives in North American deserts. It gets the water it needs from the seeds it eats, and its kidneys waste very little of it.

10. What causes the seasons on Earth? The tilt of the Earth’s axis, not its distance from the sun. When the northern half tilts towards the sun, it gets more direct sunlight and has summer, while the southern half has winter. A torch and a tilted ball in a dark room show this better than any diagram. Hands-on demonstrations like that are a regular part of the Unbox Science classes at Bambinos.

Space

11. Is a light-year a measure of time? No, it’s a measure of distance: how far light travels in one year, about 9.5 lakh crore kilometres. The name confuses a lot of people.

12. Does only Saturn have rings? No. Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune all have rings too. Saturn’s are just much larger and brighter, so they’re the easiest to see.

13. How long does the International Space Station take to circle the Earth? About 90 minutes. The astronauts on board see roughly 16 sunrises and sunsets every day.

14. Who was the first person to walk on the Moon? Neil Armstrong, on 20 July 1969, during NASA’s Apollo 11 mission.

15. What is Gaganyaan? India’s human spaceflight programme, run by ISRO. Its goal is to send Indian astronauts into orbit on an Indian rocket.

16. When did Mangalyaan reach Mars? India’s Mars Orbiter Mission reached Mars orbit in September 2014. India was the first country to succeed on its first attempt, and the mission inspired the film Mission Mangal.

India

17. Who was the first Indian to win a Nobel Prize? Rabindranath Tagore, for Literature in 1913. He was also the first non-European to win one.

18. Why is National Science Day celebrated on 28 February? On that day in 1928, C. V. Raman announced the discovery of the Raman effect, which later won him the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics.

19. Where does the Tapi river begin? In the Satpura range in Madhya Pradesh. It is one of the few large Indian rivers that flows west, into the Arabian Sea.

20. Where is the national flag hoisted on Independence Day, and where is it unfurled on Republic Day? On Independence Day, the Prime Minister hoists the flag at the Red Fort in Delhi. On Republic Day, the President unfurls it at Kartavya Path.

21. Where do the Bhil people mainly live? The Bhils are one of India’s largest tribal groups. They live mainly in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

22. Which city is called the Orange City of India? Nagpur, in Maharashtra, because of the oranges grown in the region around it.

23. What does ISRO stand for, and where is its headquarters? Indian Space Research Organisation. Its headquarters is in Bengaluru.

24. Which were India’s four original metro cities? Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. Today, several more cities, including Bengaluru and Hyderabad, are counted among India’s largest urban areas.

25. Which state is known as the Spice Garden of India? Kerala, which grows cardamom, black pepper and many other spices. Spices brought foreign traders to Kerala’s coast for centuries.

The world

26. Which country is called the Land of the Rising Sun? Japan. Its name in Japanese, Nihon, means roughly “origin of the sun”, because from China, the sun rose in the direction of Japan.

27. Where is the World Health Organization based? Geneva, Switzerland.

28. What is the Pyramid of Khufu? The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, built about 4,500 years ago. For roughly 3,800 years it was the tallest human-made structure on Earth.

29. Who was the first President of the United States? George Washington, from 1789 to 1797. Thomas Jefferson, whose name sometimes turns up wrongly in quizzes, was the third.

30. Why is Portuguese the official language of Brazil? Brazil was a Portuguese colony for more than 300 years. It’s the largest Portuguese-speaking country in the world.

31. What is the capital of Mexico? Mexico City. It’s built on the site of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire, which stood on an island in a lake.

32. Which ship sank on its first voyage in 1912? The RMS Titanic. It hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic, and more than 1,500 people died.

33. Which country has the most time zones? France, with 12, because of its overseas territories spread across the world. Russia has the most within one continuous stretch of land.

34. Which two countries produce most of the world’s cocoa? Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and Ghana, in West Africa. Between them they grow more than half the world’s cocoa.

35. When is Earth Day observed? 22 April. It was first held in 1970 and is now marked in more than 190 countries.

Sport

36. What is the Olympic motto? “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together”. The word “Together” was added in 2021. Younger siblings can try the Olympics round in our Class 7 GK quiz, which asks which cities host the next two Games.

37. How long can a Test cricket match last? Up to five days. If neither side wins by the end of the fifth day, the match is a draw.

38. Which country does taekwondo come from? Korea. It has been a full Olympic sport since 2000.

39. How many players does a kabaddi team have on the court? Seven, with up to five substitutes.

40. Who won India’s first individual Olympic gold medal? Abhinav Bindra, in the 10 m air rifle event at Beijing 2008.

The human body

41. Which is the largest organ inside the body? The liver. (The skin is the largest organ overall, but it’s on the outside.)

42. What is the hardest substance in the human body? Tooth enamel. It’s harder than bone, but it can’t repair itself once it’s damaged.

43. Why do we get goosebumps? Tiny muscles at the base of each hair tighten when we’re cold or frightened. In furry animals, this fluffs up the coat for warmth or to look bigger.

44. Which blood cells carry oxygen? Red blood cells. They contain haemoglobin, an iron-rich protein that holds on to oxygen. It is also what gives blood its red colour.

45. How many chambers does the human heart have? Four: two atria at the top and two ventricles at the bottom.

GK answers that have changed

Older quiz books and websites still print the earlier versions of these answers.

46. Does Jammu and Kashmir have its own constitution? Not any more. It did under Article 370 until August 2019, when the special status was removed. The former state was then reorganised into two union territories: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.

47. How many planets are in the solar system? Eight. Pluto was counted as the ninth until 2006, when the International Astronomical Union reclassified it as a dwarf planet.

48. Which country has the largest population? India. According to UN estimates, it overtook China in 2023.

49. How tall is Mount Everest? 8,848.86 metres, according to a joint survey by Nepal and China announced in 2020. The older figure, 8,848 metres, is still widely printed.

50. Has the Olympic motto always been “Faster, Higher, Stronger”? That was the motto for over a century, but in 2021 the International Olympic Committee added “Together” (see question 36).

A habit worth building

Questions 46 to 50 show why it’s worth checking the date of any GK source. A Class 8 student who learns to ask “Is this still true?” is learning the most useful research habit of all.

At Bambinos, live classes for older kids work on this kind of thinking: explaining an answer, checking a claim and speaking clearly in a group. The first class is a free trial.