About this quiz
Famous inventors, scientific discoveries and historic world firsts in exploration and space.
This Lok Sewa practice set has 20 multiple-choice questions (Subject: General Knowledge · For: Kharidar, Nayab Subba, Section Officer · Level: Medium). Take the quiz above first; after that, use the study list below to revise every question with its correct answer and a short explanation.
Study list: all 20 questions with answers and explanations
Who received the first patent for the telephone in 1876?
- A) Alexander Graham Bell ✔
- B) Thomas Edison
- C) Guglielmo Marconi
- D) Nikola Tesla
Why: Alexander Graham Bell received the patent for the telephone in 1876.
Who discovered the neutron in 1932?
- A) Ernest Rutherford
- B) James Chadwick ✔
- C) Niels Bohr
- D) Enrico Fermi
Why: James Chadwick discovered the neutron in 1932 and received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1935.
Who discovered penicillin in 1928?
- A) Louis Pasteur
- B) Edward Jenner
- C) Alexander Fleming ✔
- D) Robert Koch
Why: Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the first widely used antibiotic, in 1928.
Who gave the law of universal gravitation?
- A) Galileo Galilei
- B) Albert Einstein
- C) Johannes Kepler
- D) Isaac Newton ✔
Why: Isaac Newton described the law of universal gravitation in 1687.
The theory of relativity was given by whom?
- A) Niels Bohr
- B) Albert Einstein ✔
- C) Max Planck
- D) Isaac Newton
Why: Albert Einstein published the special theory of relativity in 1905 and the general theory in 1915.
Who developed the movable-type printing press in Europe around 1440?
- A) Johannes Gutenberg ✔
- B) William Caxton
- C) Leonardo da Vinci
- D) Galileo Galilei
Why: Johannes Gutenberg of Germany developed the movable-type printing press around 1440.
Who was the first person to walk on the Moon?
- A) Buzz Aldrin
- B) Yuri Gagarin
- C) Michael Collins
- D) Neil Armstrong ✔
Why: Neil Armstrong stepped onto the Moon in July 1969 during the Apollo 11 mission.
In which year did humans first land on the Moon?
- A) 1961
- B) 1965
- C) 1969 ✔
- D) 1972
Why: Apollo 11 landed on the Moon in July 1969.
Who was the first human to travel into space, in 1961?
- A) Alan Shepard
- B) John Glenn
- C) Yuri Gagarin ✔
- D) Neil Armstrong
Why: Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union orbited the Earth aboard Vostok 1 on 12 April 1961.
Who was the first woman to travel into space?
- A) Valentina Tereshkova ✔
- B) Sally Ride
- C) Kalpana Chawla
- D) Svetlana Savitskaya
Why: Valentina Tereshkova of the Soviet Union flew into space in 1963.
Mount Everest was first climbed in which year?
- A) 1950
- B) 1953 ✔
- C) 1956
- D) 1960
Why: Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary reached the summit of Everest on 29 May 1953 (2010 BS).
Who invented dynamite?
- A) Henry Ford
- B) Marie Curie
- C) Rudolf Diesel
- D) Alfred Nobel ✔
Why: Alfred Nobel invented dynamite in 1867; the Nobel Prizes were later set up from his fortune.
Who developed the smallpox vaccine in 1796?
- A) Louis Pasteur
- B) Robert Koch
- C) Joseph Lister
- D) Edward Jenner ✔
Why: Edward Jenner developed the smallpox vaccine in 1796.
The Wright brothers made the first powered aeroplane flight in which year?
- A) 1899
- B) 1910
- C) 1903 ✔
- D) 1927
Why: Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first controlled powered flight on 17 December 1903.
Who discovered X-rays in 1895?
- A) Wilhelm Roentgen ✔
- B) J.J. Thomson
- C) Ernest Rutherford
- D) Henri Becquerel
Why: Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered X-rays in 1895.
Who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize?
- A) Mother Teresa
- B) Marie Curie ✔
- C) Dorothy Hodgkin
- D) Irene Joliot-Curie
Why: Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903, becoming the first woman Nobel laureate.
Who discovered the electron in 1897?
- A) Ernest Rutherford
- B) Max Planck
- C) Niels Bohr
- D) J.J. Thomson ✔
Why: J.J. Thomson discovered the electron in 1897.
Who first described the circulation of blood in the human body?
- A) Edward Jenner
- B) William Harvey ✔
- C) Louis Pasteur
- D) Gregor Mendel
Why: William Harvey described the circulation of blood by the heart in 1628.
Who proposed that the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun?
- A) Nicolaus Copernicus ✔
- B) Ptolemy
- C) Aristotle
- D) Isaac Newton
Why: Nicolaus Copernicus put forward the heliocentric (Sun-centred) model in 1543.
Who led the first expedition to reach the South Pole in 1911?
- A) Robert Falcon Scott
- B) Ernest Shackleton
- C) Roald Amundsen ✔
- D) Robert Peary
Why: Roald Amundsen of Norway reached the South Pole on 14 December 1911.