Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

One continent, many records

Asia is both the largest continent and the one with the most people, stretching from the Mediterranean coast to the Pacific. That scale explains why the Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands, sits firmly within it rather than in the Pacific sphere some maps suggest. The continent also holds both the highest point above sea level, Mount Everest, and the lowest exposed land, the Dead Sea shore.

A motto in a dead language

Citius, Altius, Fortius translates as "faster, higher, stronger" - a phrase coined by the French educator Henri Didon and adopted for the modern Olympic movement. Latin was chosen for its brevity and gravitas, and the motto has survived more than a century of political upheaval. Since 2021 the Games also carry an additional motto, "Communiter", meaning "together".

Why Canada is a country of lakes

Canada's lake count is usually credited to its glacial history: ice sheets scoured the bedrock, leaving behind countless depressions that filled with meltwater. The result includes the Great Lakes, shared with the United States, and vast northern waters such as Great Bear and Great Slave Lake. Sweden and Finland are also lake-rich, but Canada's sheer area gives it the edge.

The body's named after a rainbow

The iris takes its name from the Greek word for rainbow, a nod to the coloured ring around the pupil. It works like the aperture of a camera, contracting and expanding to control how much light reaches the retina. Behind it, the lens fine-tunes focus - two small structures doing very different jobs.

Three sisters and a stalled dream

Chekhov's "Three Sisters" follows Olga, Masha and Irina Prozorov, who long to return to Moscow but find themselves stuck in a provincial town. The play premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1901, written for the company founded by Konstantin Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. Its quiet, Chekhovian drama turned ordinary frustration into enduring theatre.