Which geometry tool is used to draw circles?
Answer : The compass
A compass has a fixed point that is placed on the paper and a pencil lead that draws the circle; the gap between the two sets the size of the radius.
Questions and answers: Back to school
Revise Back to school: here is a selection of questions of every level, with the answer and an explanation. To test yourself without seeing the answers, play the quizzes.
Play the Back to school quizzesVery easy
How many letters does the French alphabet have?
Answer : 26
The French alphabet uses 26 letters: 6 vowels (a, e, i, o, u, y) and 20 consonants. Accented letters such as é or à are variants of these same letters.
What is 7 x 8?
Answer : 56
7 x 8 = 56. A handy way to remember it is the sequence 5, 6, 7, 8: 56 = 7 x 8.
Which school subject studies continents, countries, landforms and climates?
Answer : Geography
Geography describes the Earth and its people. The word comes from ancient Greek and means 'description of the Earth'.
In which month does the school year traditionally begin in mainland France?
Answer : September
In France, la rentrée, the return to school, takes place in early September after about two months of summer holidays.
Which planet is closest to the Sun?
Answer : Mercury
Mercury orbits the Sun at an average distance of about 58 million kilometres and completes a lap in 88 Earth days, the shortest year of any planet.
Which ocean separates Europe and Africa from the Americas?
Answer : The Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic, the world's second-largest ocean, lies between Europe and Africa to the east and the two Americas to the west.
Which colour do you get when you mix blue and yellow paint?
Answer : Green
In painting, blue and yellow are primary colours. Mixing them gives green, while mixing red and yellow gives orange.
Easy
Which minister was behind the 1881 and 1882 laws that made primary school free, secular and compulsory in France?
Answer : Jules Ferry
As minister of public education, Jules Ferry passed free primary schooling in 1881, then made it compulsory and secular in 1882.
Which Polish-born scientist won two Nobel Prizes, one in physics and one in chemistry?
Answer : Marie Curie
Marie Curie won the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics, shared with Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel, then the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering polonium and radium.
Which English scientist set out the law of universal gravitation in 1687?
Answer : Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton published his theory in the Principia in 1687. The story of the falling apple is an anecdote he reportedly told himself later in life.
How many sides does a hexagon have?
Answer : 6
Hexagon comes from Greek and means 'six angles'. 'L'Hexagone' is also a nickname for mainland France, whose outline roughly recalls this shape.
What is the chemical formula of water?
Answer : H2O
A water molecule is made of two hydrogen atoms (H) and one oxygen atom (O), hence the formula H2O.
What is the name of the diploma awarded at the end of high school in France?
Answer : The baccalauréat
Created by Napoleon I in 1808, the baccalauréat is both the end-of-secondary-school diploma and the first university grade.
What is the approximate value of pi?
Answer : 3.14
Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Its decimal expansion is infinite and never repeats.
Which author wrote the Fables, including The Crow and the Fox, that many French pupils learn by heart?
Answer : Jean de La Fontaine
Between 1668 and 1694, La Fontaine published twelve books of Fables, often reworking tales by Aesop and Phaedrus.
Medium
In which city is the university founded in 1088, considered the oldest in Europe still in operation?
Answer : Bologna
The University of Bologna, in Italy, dates itself to 1088; Paris and Oxford developed a little later, in the 12th century.
Which Greek mathematician wrote the Elements, a geometry treatise used as a textbook for more than two thousand years?
Answer : Euclid
Written around 300 BC in Alexandria, Euclid's Elements starts from a few axioms and proves everything else step by step, a model of rigour for centuries.
Which Russian chemist published the first version of his periodic table of the elements in 1869?
Answer : Dmitri Mendeleev
Dmitri Mendeleev arranged the elements by atomic mass and left gaps for elements not yet discovered, such as gallium, found in 1875.
In which country does the school year traditionally begin in early April, when the cherry trees bloom?
Answer : Japan
In Japan, schools open in early April, like the fiscal year, and entrance ceremonies are often held under cherry blossoms.
Which Frenchman, blind since childhood, devised around the age of 15 a writing system of six raised dots?
Answer : Louis Braille
A pupil at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris, Louis Braille refined around 1824 Charles Barbier's twelve-dot night writing into his six-dot code.
The word alphabet comes from the names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. Which ones?
Answer : Alpha and beta
Alpha and beta are the first two Greek letters, themselves inherited from the Phoenician letters aleph and bet.
Which minister of Louis XIII founded the Académie française in 1635?
Answer : Richelieu
Cardinal Richelieu gave official status in 1635 to a small circle of writers. The Académie has forty members, nicknamed the Immortals, and publishes a reference dictionary.
Who published On the Origin of Species in 1859, a founding work on evolution by natural selection?
Answer : Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin set out evolution by natural selection, an idea that the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace had developed independently at the same period.
Hard
Which churchman, chaplain to King Louis IX, founded around 1257 the college that gave its name to the Sorbonne?
Answer : Robert de Sorbon
Robert de Sorbon set up this Paris college so that students with little money could study theology; its name eventually came to designate the whole University of Paris.
Which Prussian reformer was behind the University of Berlin, founded in 1810?
Answer : Wilhelm von Humboldt
Wilhelm von Humboldt championed uniting teaching and research, a model that has inspired many universities around the world.
In 1882, primary education became compulsory in France for children of which age range?
Answer : From 6 to 13
The law of 28 March 1882 set compulsory schooling from age 6 to 13 and made public primary teaching secular.
Which Italian educator opened the first Casa dei Bambini in Rome in 1907?
Answer : Maria Montessori
Maria Montessori offered materials sized for children, which they could handle freely to learn at their own pace; she was one of the first women doctors in Italy.
Which 17th-century Czech educator published the Orbis pictus, one of the first illustrated books for children?
Answer : Jan Amos Comenius
Published in Nuremberg in 1658, this book pairs pictures with text to teach children Latin and everyday vocabulary.
Which 17th-century French mathematician jotted a famous theorem in a book margin, finally solved in the 1990s by Andrew Wiles?
Answer : Pierre de Fermat
Around 1637, Fermat claimed that x^n + y^n = z^n has no solution in positive whole numbers when n is greater than 2; Wiles's proof dates from 1994-1995.
Which mathematician from Pisa introduced Hindu-Arabic numerals to Europe in his Liber abaci in 1202?
Answer : Fibonacci
Leonardo of Pisa, known as Fibonacci, showed the usefulness of the digits 0 to 9 for calculation; the number sequence that bears his name appears in a problem about rabbits.
In which city is Harvard, the oldest university in the United States, founded in 1636?
Answer : Cambridge
Harvard stands in Cambridge, across the Charles River from Boston. It is named after John Harvard, a minister whose 1638 bequest supported it.
Expert
Which king of Bohemia, later Holy Roman Emperor, founded the University of Prague in 1348?
Answer : Charles IV
Founded in 1348, the University of Prague, now Charles University, is often cited as the oldest in central Europe. Charles IV drew inspiration from the University of Paris.
Which Popular Front minister of National Education had compulsory schooling extended to age 14 in 1936?
Answer : Jean Zay
The August 1936 law raised compulsory schooling to age 14. Jean Zay, minister from 1936 to 1939, entered the Panthéon in 2015.
Which 1833 law, named after a minister of Public Instruction, required every commune to maintain a boys' primary school?
Answer : The Guizot law
The Guizot law of 28 June 1833 also required each département to maintain a teacher-training school, an école normale, for primary teachers.
In which year was the École polytechnique founded, at first under the name École centrale des travaux publics?
Answer : 1794
Created in 1794 on the initiative of Lazare Carnot and Gaspard Monge, it took its current name in 1795 and became a military school in 1804 under Napoleon I.
In which Moroccan city is the Al-Qarawiyyin university, founded in 859?
Answer : Fez
Founded by Fatima al-Fihri, it is often cited as one of the oldest educational institutions still in operation in the world.
Which logician published his incompleteness theorems in 1931, showing the limits of axiomatic systems in mathematics?
Answer : Kurt Gödel
Kurt Gödel proved that in any consistent system rich enough to contain arithmetic, some true statements cannot be proved within the system itself.
Which Swedish naturalist popularised binomial nomenclature, giving each species two Latin names such as Homo sapiens?
Answer : Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus used it in his Systema Naturae; its tenth edition, from 1758, is the starting point of zoological nomenclature.
Which national university entrance exam is taken every year by South Korean high-school students?
Answer : The Suneung
The Suneung, or CSAT, is generally held in November; during the English listening section, flights are suspended so that planes do not disturb candidates.
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