True or False Quiz: 10 Myths and Facts to Test Your Instincts

This true or false quiz mixes popular myths with surprising facts about lightning, goldfish, Napoleon, the Eiffel Tower, Mount Everest and bananas. Read each statement, trust your instincts, and see the real answer explained after every question.

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🎯 Daily Trivia Challenge • 🧠 10 Questions • ⏱️ 90 Seconds

Question 1 / 10 Time: 90s

Weather
Lightning never strikes the same place twice.
Animals
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
Human Body
Humans use only 10 percent of their brains.
Geography
Measured from base to peak, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth.
Landmarks
The Eiffel Tower was first built as a temporary structure.
Animals
A goldfish can only remember things for about three seconds.
Space
Venus spins in the opposite direction to most planets in the solar system.
History
Napoleon Bonaparte was unusually short for a Frenchman of his time.
Science
Sound travels faster through water than through air.
Plants
Bananas grow on trees.

Explanations: answer key for all 10 questions

Q1: Lightning never strikes the same place twice.
Answer: False
False. Lightning often hits the same place again and again, especially tall, pointed objects. The Empire State Building in New York is struck around 20 to 25 times a year.
Q2: An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
Answer: True
True. An ostrich eye is about 5 centimeters across, the largest of any land animal, and it is larger than the bird's own brain. Big eyes help it spot predators across open savanna.
Q3: Humans use only 10 percent of their brains.
Answer: False
False. Brain scans show activity across almost every part of the brain over the course of a day, even during sleep. Damage to any small area can affect how a person thinks, moves or feels.
Q4: Measured from base to peak, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth.
Answer: False
False. Everest has the highest summit above sea level, but Mauna Kea in Hawaii is taller from base to peak. Measured from the ocean floor, Mauna Kea rises about 10,200 meters.
Q5: The Eiffel Tower was first built as a temporary structure.
Answer: True
True. The tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair in Paris, and its permit was for only 20 years. It was saved partly because it proved useful as a radio antenna.
Q6: A goldfish can only remember things for about three seconds.
Answer: False
False. Experiments show goldfish can remember feeding times, colors and sounds for weeks or even months. Some have been trained to push levers and swim through small mazes.
Q7: Venus spins in the opposite direction to most planets in the solar system.
Answer: True
True. Venus rotates backward compared with Earth, so on Venus the Sun would rise in the west and set in the east. It also spins so slowly that one day there lasts longer than its year.
Q8: Napoleon Bonaparte was unusually short for a Frenchman of his time.
Answer: False
False. Napoleon was about 1.70 meters (5 feet 7 inches) tall, average or slightly above average for his era. The myth came partly from confusion between French and British inches and from British cartoons.
Q9: Sound travels faster through water than through air.
Answer: True
True. Sound moves at roughly 1,480 meters per second in water, more than four times faster than in air. That is why whales can hear each other across huge stretches of ocean.
Q10: Bananas grow on trees.
Answer: False
False. The banana plant has no woody trunk, so botanists class it as a giant herb, not a tree. Its stem is made of tightly packed leaf stalks.

True or False Quiz – Myth or Fact?

True or false questions look easy, because you always have a fifty-fifty chance. The catch is that many of the statements in this quiz are things people have heard all their lives. Lightning never strikes twice, goldfish forget everything in seconds, Napoleon was tiny, we only use a tenth of our brains: these ideas are repeated so often that they feel true, even though they are not.

Other statements sound like myths but turn out to be real. An ostrich really does have eyes bigger than its brain, and the Eiffel Tower really was meant to come down after twenty years. Mixing the two kinds of statements keeps you thinking instead of guessing, and it shows how easily a good story can beat the facts.

Every answer comes with a short explanation, so even a wrong guess ends with the real story. Many players find that the myths they believed are the ones they remember best afterward.

Myths spread because they are simple and easy to repeat, while the real explanation usually takes a few more sentences. Checking a claim against a reliable source, such as a science museum, a university or a national agency, is one of the most useful habits a quiz can teach. This one simply makes practicing that habit fun.

What This Quiz Teaches

This quiz suits curious adults, students and families who like to argue about what is really true. It also works as a quick classroom warm-up on critical thinking.

Why lightning keeps hitting tall buildings like the Empire State Building
What brain scans reveal about the 10 percent myth
How Mauna Kea can be taller than Mount Everest
Where the story of the short Napoleon came from
Why sound travels faster in water than in air
Why a banana plant is not really a tree

Quick Facts: More Myths, Busted

Bulls are not angered by the color red: they react to the movement of the cape.
Bats are not blind, and many species see quite well.
Shaving does not make hair grow back thicker or darker.
Chameleons change color mainly to signal mood and control temperature, not to blend in.
A penny dropped from a skyscraper cannot kill a person, because air resistance slows it down.
Camels do not store water in their humps: the humps are mostly fat.