Quiz 08

Question 1

The phrase BRIC Nations refers to a group fo countries whose economies and influence are growing and predicted to keep growing during the 21st century. What do the letters BRIC stand for?

Answer 1

Brazil, Russia, India, China

Question 2

Decaying uranium finally becomes an isotope of which metal?

Answer 2

Lead

Question 3

Le Manege Enchante was the originally French title of which classic children’s TV programme?

Answer 3

The Magic Roundabout

Question 4

Which financial enterprise began in a coffee house in Tower Street London, in the 1680s before moving to bigger premises near Lombard Street?

Answer 4

Lloyds

Question 5

Which itinerant ballet company, directed by Sergei Diaghilev and widely regarded as the greatest ballet company of the 20th century performed in many countries between 1909 and 1929?

Answer 5

Ballet Russes

Question 6

In which range of hills are the Wookey Hole caves?

Answer 6

Mendips

Question 7

Which British actor and comedian directed his first Hollywood feature in 2009, called The Invention of Lying?

Answer 7

Ricky Gervais

Question 8

What is the chemical formula for Ozone?

Answer 8

O3

Question 9

In 1981 a book by twelve year old Patrick Bossert became one of the fastest selling books of all time. Its contents provided a means of solving which problem?

Answer 9

Rubik’s cube

Question 10

Recorded as an entry in his diary, “God grant my eyes may never behold the like” is a sentiment reflecting John Evelyn’s response to which historical event?

Answer 10

Great Fire of London

Question 11

The Rainbow Bridge, a natural arch of pink sandstone crosses Lake Powell in which US state?

Answer 11

Utah

Question 12

In the Hindu religion, what is a Sadhu?

Answer 12

Holy man, sage

Question 13

Bob Paisley steered which football club to six league titles and three European Cups during nine years as manager?

Answer 13

Liverpool

Question 14

According to the humorous book of British history 1066 And All That by Sellar and Yeatman, which parliament was so-called because it had been sitting for such a long time?

Answer 14

Rump Parliament

Question 15

The sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped takes its title from the girl the hero David Balfour falls in love with. What is its title?

Answer 15

Catriona

Question 16

What stretch of water separates the Isle of Anglesey from the Welsh mainland?

Answer 16

Menai Straits

Question 17

The host used in the sacrament of Holy Communion, the Indian chapati and the matzo traditionally eaten during the Jewish feast of the Passover are all forms of what type of bread?

Answer 17

Unleavened

Question 18

Which old fashioned phrase for nudity, familiar from a song featured in a film with Danny Kaye, is though to have been first popularised by its use in George Du Maurier’s novel Trilby in 1890s?

Answer 18

Altogether

Question 19

Which chemical element has as its symbol the single letter P?

Answer 19

Phosphorus

Question 20

Delphi, home of the Oracle of legend, lies on the slopes of which Greek mountain, which was itself sacred to the Muses?

Answer 20

Mount Parnassus

Question 21

The Treaty of Paris in March 1856 formally ended which war?

Answer 21

Crimean

Question 22

The Morrison Formation, a geological feature of the western United States, is the American continent’s richest source of fossil remains of what type of creatures?

Answer 22

Dinosaurs

Question 23

The swimwear known as a bikini acquired its name because the word bikini was in the news at the time of its introduction in 1946. Can you explain why?

Answer 23

Nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll

Question 24

Buteo buteo is the taxonomic name of which large bird of prey, widespread in Britain and Europe

Answer 24

Buzzard

Question 25

The film known simply as Star Wars on its first release in 1977 became Episode 4 in the eventual sequence of films and acquired a subtitle. Can you give the subtitle?

Answer 25

A New Hope

Question 26

What two-word term is used for a synthetic androgen that selectively enhances the growth of skeletal muscle?

Answer 26

Anabolic Steroid

Question 27

The branch of chemistry known as organic chemistry involves the study of the compounds of which element?

Answer 27

Carbon

Question 28

In popular fiction what profession is common to both Irene Adler the New Jersey-born beauty who outwits Sherlock Holmes in Conan Doyle’s A Scandal in Bohemia, and Bianca Castafiore, the victim of jewel theft in the Tintin adventure The Castefiore Emerald?

Answer 28

Opera singers

Question 29

Which body was created in the UK in 1995 to assume many of the roles and responsibilities formerly undertaken by the National Rivers Authority, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Pollution and the waste regulation authorities of England and Wales

Answer 29

Environment Agency

Question 30

The carbonated soft drink generally known in the US as cream soda is flavoured with pods from plants of which genus?

Answer 30

Vanilla

Question 31

In 1964 the American theoretical physicist Murray Gell-Mann coined which word for a group of subatomic particles regarded, along with leptons, as basic constituents of matter?

Answer 31

Quarks

Question 32

Bhadrapada, Asvina and Kartika are months in the calendar of which religion?

Answer 32

Hinduism

Question 33

For what sort of event would an epithalium be written?

Answer 33

Wedding

Question 34

What two word term is widely used as the US equivalent to what the British would call positive discrimination?

Answer 34

Affirmative Action

Question 35

Jane Eyre is the best known of Charlotte Bronte’s four published novels. Can you name any one of the other three?

Answer 35

The Professor/Shirley/Vilette

Question 36

Two of the United States of America have names which, in common pronunciation, end with a silent S. Which two?

Answer 36

Arkansas/Illinois

Question 37

What was the traditional subject of the type of wall painting, often seen in medieval churches, known as a Doom?

Answer 37

The Last Judgement

Question 38

Known for his drawings in black, influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts and emphasising the grotesque, the decadent and the erotic, who was the first art editor of The Yellow Book, an influential literary periodical published in London in the 1890s?

Answer 38

Aubrey Beardsley

Question 39

In English folklore, a tod is a traditional name for which animal?

Answer 39

Fox

Question 40

The name of which Italian dairy product means recooked?

Answer 40

Ricotta