You Got That Right!

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Question #1

No one in the country even knew about the new Constitution until after it was signed by the delegates.

True: People in Philadelphia found out that a new Constitution had been written when it was published on September 19, 1787 – two days after it was signed!

Question #2

The Constitution was written at an Iggy Azalea concert.

False: Iggy isn’t that old! The Constitution was written in secret in Pennsylvania 227 years ago.

Question #3

The President has to be at least 35 years old and have lived in the U.S. for 14 years.

True: The youngest President however, was 42 years old. That sounds old to you now, but time flies when you are young. When the school day starts to feel long, then you're getting old.

Question #4

The First amendment guarantees you the freedom of speech, and that means you can say whatever you want, whenever you want.

False: You do have the freedom of speech, BUT there are some limits. For example, you can't use bad words in class to disrupt class lessons. Also, you probably shouldn't tell Ms. Smith about that hairy mole on her nose, but you can organize a group of your friends together to talk to the Principal about Mr. Matthews sleeping during class.

Question #5

The Constitution became the law of the land as soon as the delegates signed it on September 17, 1787.

False: Not so fast. The states that the delegates represented still had to agree to the new Constitution and 9 out of the original 13 states had to approve it before it could go into effect. That finally happened on June 21, 1788.

Question #6

The Constitution is made up of a preamble and seven original articles.

True: Although it was "only" four pages long, each page was 28" X 23". Using today's letter sized paper, each page of the Constitution would have taken up over 7 sheets of paper. That's a total of 29 sheets of paper for the whole Constitution.

Question #7

All of our Presidents in the U.S. have been U.S. born citizens.

False: The first U.S. born citizen to become President was Martin Van Buren, the 8th President; he was born after the American Revolution. The first seven Presidents before Van Buren and the 9th President were all originally "British subjects" before the revolution.

Question #8

The First 10 Amendments to the Constitution are known as The Rights of Bill.

False: Close! They are known as the Bill of Rights and they were all added at the same time, three years after the Constitution was approved. You read this question too fast, we said Rights of Bill!

Question #9

Because of its age, the Constitution is no longer as important as it was when it went into effect in 1789.

False: The Constitution is as important now as it was back then! Every day, things happen in the courts, government or schools that could threaten your rights. If you don't know what your rights are, how can you stop someone from taking advantage of you?

Question #10

An amendment is a fancy word that means "change."

True: The Amendments to the Constitution are all changes or additions. Did you know that people have suggested over 11,000 amendments to the Constitution but only 27 have been approved? Good thing too - imagine being tested on 11,000 changes to the Constitution.

Question #11

According to the Constitution, the people of the United States elect the President.

False: The President is elected by the Electoral College; each state and the District of Columbia has a certain number of electoral votes and a president needs at least 270 electoral college votes to win. But don’t get this wrong, every person’s vote still counts!

Question #12

You have to be a citizen to go to school in America.

False: Any child living in America has the right to attend grade school. Feel free to do some extra homework and tests too, if you like.

Question #13

Rhode Island refused to attend the Constitutional Convention.

True: Franklin pretended to be an older woman so that his articles could get published in a newspaper. Talk about being a rebellious teen.

Question #14

The Constitution set up three parts of the U. S. government: Executive, Legislative and Judicial.

True: These parts are called branches: the Executive branch is controlled by the President; the Legislative branch is controlled by Congress and the Judicial branch is controlled by the Supreme Court of the United States. This way, America can never have one person controlling the whole country. This is a VERY important part of how the U.S. government functions!

Question #15

The people didn’t get to see the Constitution until it was posted on Facebook.

False: The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser published a copy of the Constitution on September 19, 1787—two days after it was signed. Come to think of it, newspapers were the closest things to Facebook back then.

Question #16

The US Post Office has made four stamps that feature Alexander Hamilton.

True: It is a big deal to have one stamp but four is crazy!

Question #17

In 1787, Congress was happy that the delegates had saved them the trouble of having to write the new Constitution.

False: The delegates didn’t have the authority to write a new Constitution! They had been asked to fix the Articles of Confederation. That’s one of the reasons they were so secretive about writing a Constitution.

Question #18

The Bill of Rights isn’t important, that’s why it was a later addition to the Constitution.

False: The Bill of Rights is very important! It protects our individual rights and freedoms. That’s one bill we can’t do without.

Question #19

Writing the Constitution as we know it today was not part of the original plan for the Constitutional Convention.

True: Originally, the plan was to make changes to a document called the Articles of Confederation, but after they started making the changes, the Framers decided to write a whole new Constitution.

Question #20

Thomas Jefferson signed the Constitution.

False: He was in France as the American minister when the Constitution was signed. Do you know which founding document Thomas Jefferson wrote and signed? HINT: It’s the document most often confused with the Constitution!