How many rivers are there in the world? Try our kids’ quiz

1. Pieter, 9, asks: how many rivers are there in the world?

   1. 900

   2. 10,000

   3. 7 billion

   4. No one is sure how many rivers there are – it’s very hard to count them!

2. Lara, 4, asks: what is the biggest land animal on Earth?

   1. Lion

   2. Elephant

   3. Blue whale

   4. Giraffe

3. Henry, 6, asks: how many zeros are there in the number googol?

   1. 50

   2. 100

   3. Far too many zeros to count them all

   4. 1,000

4. Aayan, 9, asks: fishes have lots of bones, but why don’t sharks have any?

   1. Sharks are too big to have bones – they are made of skin and teeth

   2. They have very tough skin so they don’t need bones – you can’t tell how floppy they are because they’re in water

   3. They have cartilage instead of bones, a flexible kind of connective tissue

   4. Sharks do have lots of bones!

5. Zac, 9, asks: who looks after her dogs now that Queen Elizabeth II has died?

   1. Prince William looks after them

   2. The Buckingham Palace butler looks after them

   3. King Charles

   4. Prince Andrew

Solutions

1:D - It’s incredibly hard to figure out exactly how many rivers there are, as it depends on what you count as a river. Rivers are also often changing shape, or even drying up, and there are so many small streams and creeks that it makes it very hard to put a figure on it. Some estimates put it at 150,000 but there may be many more., 2:B - The African bush elephant holds the title for the biggest land animal, weighing around 5,500kg on average and growing tusks up to 2.5 metres long. They need to drink up to 190 litres of water a day!, 3:B - A googol is 1 followed by one hundred zeros., 4:C - Sharks’ skeletons are made out of cartilage, which is a lighter and more flexible material than bone – similar to what human ears and noses are made of. This helps sharks to swim faster, and also means they can turn quickly when chasing prey., 5:D - The Queen owned many dogs over the course of her reign, including her beloved corgis. When she died, Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson adopted her two surviving corgis, Muick and Sandy.

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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