What is the tallest space rocket and the loudest animal? Try our kids’ quiz

Illustration: Hennie Haworth/The Guardian

1. Bonnie, 5, asks: what is the tallest space rocket that has ever been built?

   1. Mars XII

   2. Zeus IV

   3. Apollo XIII

   4. Saturn V

2. Tovah, 4, asks: what makes us cough?

   1. We cough when we have a full tummy

   2. We cough when we have to refocus because we’ve got bad eyesight

   3. Pollutants, irritants and mucus all make us cough

   4. Bad smells

3. Daisy Mae, 3, asks: what is the loudest animal in the whole wide world?

   1. Sperm whale

   2. Howler monkey

   3. Lion

   4. Blue whale

4. Max, 8, asks: why do cats cough up hairballs?

   1. Because they have hair growing in their tummies

   2. Because they think a hairball is a nice present for a human

   3. Because they swallow hair when they groom themselves

   4. Because they think hair is tasty, even though they shouldn’t eat it

5. Charlotte, 9, asks: what makes the sea blue in colour?

   1. The bottom of the sea is blue

   2. All the algae in the sea dyes the water blue

   3. Water reflects blue light best

   4. All water is actually a tiny bit blue, so when there’s lots of it together it looks blue

Solutions

1:D - Saturn V is the tallest space rocket ever. It was built by Nasa to send astronauts to the moon on its Apollo space missions and was 111 metres (363 feet) tall. The first one took off in 1967 and the last one in 1973, when it launched the Skylab space station., 2:C - Coughing is a reflex action that occurs when our throats come into contact with pollutants, irritants and mucus. The muscular movements help expel these things from our bodies., 3:A - The sperm whale is the loudest animal in the world. It makes clicking sounds that reach as high as 236 decibels. That’s louder than a gunshot!, 4:C - When cats groom themselves, they accidentally swallow some hair. As hair isn’t very easy to digest, it sometimes comes back up in the form of a hairball!, 5:C - Sunlight contains all the colours of the rainbow. They all have different wavelengths; red has the longest and blue one of the shortest. When light hits the water, it absorbs colours with longer wavelengths first and reflects back to us those with shorter wavelengths, such as blue and indigo.

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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