How did the first king and queen get their titles? Try our kids’ quiz

1. Hannah, 6, asks: how did the first king and queen in England get to be the first king and queen?

   1. A witch cast a spell so people believed they were the first king and queen

   2. A medieval couple found a crown under a tree, and were voted king and queen

   3. Athelstan became the first king by ruling England’s kingdoms of the time

   4. A contest for who could lift a heavy statue decided the first king, in 10AD

2. Jeannie, 9, asks: why does a pig have a curl in its tail?

   1. Pigs with curly tails have descended from special ancient pigs from China

   2. Straight tails are more likely to get injured

   3. Farmers carefully bred them like that

   4. Scientists and farmers aren’t entirely sure!

3. Seoyeon, 8, asks: what is the hottest country in the world?

   1. Mali

   2. Indonesia

   3. South Korea

   4. Peru

4. Sam, 4, asks: what causes a ship to sink?

   1. Flooding

   2. Collision with an object

   3. When its bottom scrapes on the ground or rocks

   4. All of the above

5. Arthur, 9, asks: why do octopuses have three hearts?

   1. They are big so they need more blood

   2. Their blood is not good at carrying oxygen, so they have to pump more of it

   3. They have a heart each for the head, body and legs

   4. Because they have a lot of love to give

Solutions

1:C - England used to exist as lots of separate kingdoms. The first to call themselves king of England was Athelstan, grandson of Alfred the Great. He was crowned in 927. His coins and documents started to describe him as “king of the English” and “king of Britain”, the first in the history of England., 2:D - There is no clear reason yet why pigs have curly tails – scientists and pig farmers have lots of varying theories., 3:A - Mali is the hottest country in the world with an average yearly temperature of 28.83C over the past 20 years. This doesn’t sound super high, but it’s an average of day and night temperatures all year round., 4:D - A ship might sink for many reasons: it floods and becomes too heavy to float; it crashes into something; it scrapes the ground; it is badly designed; or the captain makes a mistake., 5:B - Octopuses have blue blood. It isn’t so good at carrying oxygen so the octopus needs to pump a lot of blood around the body quickly. With three hearts there is one to pump blood around the body and two to pump to the gills.

Scores

1. 5 and above.

2. 4 and above.

3. 3 and above.

4. 2 and above.

5. 0 and above.

6. 1 and above.

Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a weekly podcast answering children’s questions, out now as a book.

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