← Back to all exercises
Maritime history · Intermediate / B1–B2

Great Navigators

Voyages, routes, and discoveries

For first-year maritime university students · 12 questions · About 15 minutes

Your mission

Connect famous navigators with their voyages and practise maritime English. Choose one answer, then select Check answer. Read the explanation before moving on. Each correct answer earns one point. There is no time limit.

Historical note: “Discovery” often means a place became known to visitors. Indigenous peoples already lived in many of these places and had their own knowledge of the land and sea.

Before you sail: vocabulary support
voyage
a long journey by sea
expedition
an organised journey with a particular purpose
strait
a narrow stretch of water connecting two larger bodies of water
cape
a point of land that extends into the sea
to chart
to measure and record an area on a map or nautical chart
to round
to sail around a point of land
circumnavigation
a journey all the way around the Earth or an island
crew
the people who work on a ship

After the quiz: discuss with a partner

Choose one navigator. In 4–5 sentences, describe the route, explain its importance, and identify a challenge the crew faced. Distinguish historical facts from your own ideas.

Useful language: “The expedition sailed from …” · “They reached …” · “The voyage was important because …” · “The crew may have faced …”

Speaking task: not included in your quiz score.

Historical sources and further reading