We receive countless visits to this website every day from parents and teachers looking for our popular printable quizzes for teenagers (if you didn’t know we have a growing collection on topics such as food, biology and history) so we’ve decided to go one step further and produce a printable trivia quiz all about teenagers themselves. The trivia questions are all in multiple choice format (the multiple choice answers could be excluded if you want to make it harder or encourage independent research) and they test general knowledge on the origins of the word ‘teenager’, slang, the first teenage movie star, and much more. The quiz answers are listed at the bottom of this page. Some of them have extra information to stimulate discussion and possibly opportunities for further research.
Question 1: In what decade did the word ‘teenager’ enter everyday language to represent not just an age but also an attitude?
(a) the 1920s (b) the 1930s (c) the 1940s
Question 2: Which country gave us the word ‘teenager’?
(a) America (b) Australia (c) England
Question 3: In 1944, LIFE magazine summarised the teen age by stating “There is a time in the life of every American girl when the most important thing in the world is to be ….”?
(a) one of a crowd of other girls and to act and speak and dress exactly as they do.
(b) different in every respect to every other girl on the block.
(c) the most popular girl in High School.
Question 4: With reference to 1960s slang words, if a teenager called you a ‘hawk’ in the 1960s what would they be accusing you of?
(a) being a government spy (b) being greedy (c) being a war supporter
Question 5: Judy Garland became America’s first teenage movie star following her role as Dorothy in the original 1939 version of ‘The Wizard of Oz’.
TRUE or FALSE?
Question 6: According to the National Sleep Foundation, approximately how much good quality sleep does the average teenager (aged 14 to 17) need every night to stay alert and healthy?
(a) 6 to 8 hours (b) 8 to 10 hours (c) 10 to 12 hours
Question 7: How old was the English author Mary Shelley when she started writing the original Frankenstein novel which was first published in 1818?
(a) 17 years old (b) 18 years old (c) 19 years old
Question 8: In October 2014, at the age of 17, Malala Yousafzai became the first teenager to win a Nobel Peace Prize. TRUE or FALSE?
Question 9: According to a Spring 2020 survey of 5200 US teenagers, which on-line video service do they spend the most time watching?
(a) Netflix (b) YouTube (c) Cable TV
Question 10: According to the same Spring 2020 survey mentioned in Question 9 what percentage of their spending was on food, snacks and drinks?
(a) 25% (b) 35% (c) 45%
STOP SCROLLING! …. ANSWERS BELOW!
Answer 1: (c) the 1940s. It is generally accepted that the word ‘teenager’ was first widely used in the mid 1940s. The word itself had been in general circulation since the early 1920s but it was only in the 1940s that it first began to mean more than just an age as it came to represent a whole culture and attitude.
Answer 2: (a) America
Answer 3: (a) one of a crowd of other girls and to act and speak and dress exactly as they do.
You can visit LIFE magazine’s fascinating on-line article and photography about The Invention of Teenagers to learn more about attitudes and perceptions in the 1940s. “It is a world of sweaters and skirts and bobby sox and loafers …”
Answer 4: (c) being a war supporter
The slang word ‘hawk’ was particularly aimed at people who supported the Vietnam war which ran through the 1960s from 1955 to 1975. Conversely, the slang word ‘dove’ was used to describe somebody who opposed the Vietnam war.
Answer 5: TRUE. Judy Garland was just 17 years old when she starred in the 1939 release of ‘The Wizard of Oz’. She won her first Oscar award a year later in 1940.
Answer 6: (b) 8 to 10 hours.
Research suggests however that only around 15% of teens achieve the minimum recommendation.
Answer 7: (b) 18 years old
The novel was finally published when she was twenty years old. The first edition in 1818 was published anonymously although Mary Shelley’s name appears on the 1823 second edition (published in France).
Answer 8: TRUE. She is a Pakistani activist and at the age of 17 was the youngest-ever recipient of a Nobel Prize.
Answer 9: (a) Netflix
According to the survey US teens spend around 33% of their daily video time on Netflix, ahead of YouTube at 31% and cable TV at 11%. You can check out the Taking Stock With Teens Report for yourself; just Google it!
Answer 10: (a) 25%
That’s the end of our quiz all about teenagers. Would it be helpful if this free quiz was available on a printable PDF sheet? Let us know.