By the time students in New Jersey move into middle school, they have been thoroughly indoctrinated into the history, culture and infrastructure of the Garden State. Typically, this subject is taught as part of the Social Studies curriculum in fourth or fifth grade. The answers to these 20 questions can be found in any elementary school textbook…or you could just ask an 11-year-old.
The longest river contained completely within New Jersey is…
a) the Raritan River
b) the Shark River
c) the Hackensack River
The native people of New Jersey began farming the land…
a) about 10,000 years ago
b) about 5,000 years ago
c) about 1,000 years ago
The first European explorer to set foot on New Jersey soil was…
a) Giovanni da Verrazano
b) Henry Hudson
c) Cabeza de Vaca
The first permanent Dutch settlement in New Jersey was called…
a) New Netherlands
b) New Amsterdam
c) Bergen
Revolutionary War heroine Molly Pitcher participated in…
a) The Battle of Trenton
b) The Battle of Monmouth
c) The Battle of Short Hills
The city of Trenton became New Jersey’s capital in…
a) 1770
b) 1780
c) 1790
Between 1918 and 1929, the number of cars in New Jersey rose by more than…
a) 250,000
b) 450,000
c) 650,000
Harriet Tubman’s base of operations for the Underground Railroad was…
a) Glassboro
b) Camden
c) Cape May
George McClellan, general in chief of the Union Army, was from…
a) Westwood
b) West Orange
c) West New York
Camp Dix (aka Ft. Dix) was built to train troops for…
a) The Spanish-American War
b) World War I
c) World War II
The waterway that brought coal from Pennsylvania to New Jersey factories in the 1800s was…
a) The Morris Canal
b) The Erie Canal
c) The Raritan Canal
The number of New Jerseyans who served in the military during World War II was just over…
a) 300,000
b) 400,000
c) 500,000
The postwar builder who turned Willingboro from a town of 600 to a suburb of 40,000 was…
a) William Carteret
b) William Levitt
c) William Hovnanian
The Garden State Parkway opened…
a) in 1949
b) in 1954
c) in 1959
The governor who initiated the first state income tax, specifically to support New Jersey’s schools, was…
a) Frank Hague
b) Brendan Byrne
c) Jim Florio
The state’s famous business slogan is…
a) Business is ripe in the Garden State
b) Your future is just an exit away
c) New Jersey makes, the world takes
The two parts of the legislative branch in New Jersey are…
a) the Senate and General Assembly
b) the Governor and Congress
c) the Judicial and Fiscal
The Pledge of Allegiance was given as the national oath in 1893 for the first time at…
a) The Newark Train Station
b) The Twin Lights on the Navesink Highlands
c) The steps of the Trenton Courthouse
Poet Walt Whitman lived out his final years in…
a) Saddle River
b) Weehawken
c) Camden
The New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark opened in…
a) 1997
b) 1999
c) 2001 A passing grade is 13. Brave enough to check your work? You’ll find the answers in the box at right…
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