How do you cut off?
These 20 tricky questions test their general knowledge
Updated on March 29, 2025 – 2:26 pmReading time: 2 min.

Even this week, 20 tricky questions will test their general knowledge. Can you all answer correctly? Put your skills on the test.
What is general knowledge?
General knowledge means knowledge that people with average educational opportunities can acquire. It is not just about knowledge that children and young people are taught in education and education. Knowledge that is involuntarily accepted, for example in media consumption, are included.
What is general education?
General education describes the most important knowledge and skills a person needs to be able to actively help shape all areas of modern society if possible. The general knowledge is said to be the basis for the education of every person. Both terms, general knowledge and general education are out of focus and not uniformly defined. Colloquially, the terms are often equated.
But what is the difference?
Spoken: General education requires general knowledge. If there is general knowledge, people still need their minds to understand this knowledge in contexts and to apply in doubt. In psychology, the general knowledge consists of more or less everyday facts that are stored in the long -term memory. To build this general knowledge, a person needs a certain degree of intelligence.
How did the terms develop?
The terms general education and general knowledge come from the era of the Enlightenment: This was a time of realization that the complete knowledge of civilization is not exhausted in isolated books. In addition, the quantity of knowledge does not depend on the quality: Special knowledge, for example, is only helpful or valuable for each individual, but each person needs a concrete basic treasure of experiences, insights, values that only make it possible to use the special knowledge sensibly. During the enlightenment, the encyclopedists tried to collect everything available and make it accessible to the general public – a revolutionary project, because until then, education was only reserved for certain, mostly higher layers of population.
What is part of general knowledge?
If general knowledge is defined as an educational canon, this depends very much on the respective country, culture, the individual level of education and the social environment. In Germany, knowledge from the areas of politics, economy, geography, history, language, literature, technology, natural sciences and art is part of the general knowledge.