Building Big Quiz

They're big, they're tall, they're heavy, they're spacious — how much do you know about these giant engineering projects? Test your knowledge with this quiz!
image
Akashi Kaikyo bridge
The Akashi Kaikyo bridge in Japan is the longest spanning suspension in the world. What other world record does it have?

The tallest bridge towers

The widest road on a bridge

The biggest snow plows

panelImageAltText You chose: You chose:
The towers that hold it up are 928 feet tall, higher than those of any other bridges in the world. That's almost as tall as the Chrysler Building.
World Trade Center
How much did it cost to build the World Trade Center in New York?

$4 million

$400 million

$400 billion

panelImageAltText You chose: You chose:
Once you get above a million bucks, it's all just "a lot of money" to me, but the answer is $400 million. The twin towers were the tallest in the world when they were finished in 1973, but the Sears Tower passed them a few years later.
Eiffel Tower
What is the Eiffel Tower made of?

Steel

Brass

Iron

panelImageAltText You chose: You chose:
It's made of wrought iron, arranged in an open lattice pattern so the wind can blow through. The tower was built in less than two years and opened just in time for the Paris World's Fair in 1889. Tourists loved the elevators.
Concrete
What does concrete do as it hardens?

Suck up heat.

Release heat.

Expand.

panelImageAltText You chose: You chose:
Concrete releases heat as it cures. Engineers calculate that if you just poured the concrete for the Hoover Dam, it would take 125 years to cool down. So the concrete was poured into forms that contained cooling coils; cold water was circulated through them to cool the blocks of concrete.
Chunnel
How was the Chunnel — the rail tunnel under the English Channel — dug?

Naked mole rats

Dynamite

A tunnel-shaped machine

Miners with pickaxes

panelImageAltText You chose: You chose:
It's actually called a tunnel boring machine, which makes it sound like a machine that wants to show the tunnel its vacation pictures. It's a big cylinder with a whirling cutter on its front. The tunnel (actually, it's three tunnels) was completed in 1994.
Burj Khalifa
What or who is Burj Khalifa?

The tallest building in the world

The largest mosque in the world

The heaviest man who ever lived

panelImageAltText You chose: You chose:
The Burj Khalifa, a skyscraper in Dubai, is the tallest structure in the world. It's 2,717 feet tall — more than half a mile. I don't know why anyone needs a building that tall.
Tallest man-made structure
Before the Burj Khalifa, what was the tallest man-made structure ever built?

The CN Tower in Toronto

A radio tower in Poland

The Sears Tower

panelImageAltText You chose: You chose:
The Warsaw radio tower, built in 1974, was 2,120 feet tall. It collapsed in 1991. Now that the Burj Khalifa is up, the second tallest structure currently standing in the world is a tower in North Dakota, at 2,063 feet.
Annie
In the song "It's the Hard-Knock Life" in the musical Annie, what building — the tallest in the world when it was finished in 1930 — is the orphanage supposed to shine like?

Chrysler Building

Empire State Building

Sears Tower

panelImageAltText You chose: You chose:
The Chrysler Building. It is quite shiny, as buildings go.

Correct

Um, your knowledge of all things big seems rather...small? Maybe you should try our Nano Technology Quiz!

Correct

Not bad. You seem to have a good grasp on the big stuff. Challenge yourself to the ultimate Engineering Quiz and see if you can beat your score!

Correct

Wow, you must have a really big brain! We're guessing you might like our Big, Bigger Biggest Video. Or see if you can take it from giant to tiny with our Nano Quiz!
Advertisement
 
 
 

our sites

video

shop

stay connected

corporate