Quiz 10

Question 1

Which elementary particles, believed to be one of the basic building blocks of matter, are divided into six types: Up, Down, Top, Bottom, Strange and Charm?

Answer 1

Quarks

Question 2

Which fictional villain, later the subject of a musical by Stephen Sondheim, made his first appearance in The String of Pearls, a story which first appeared in The People’s Periodical in 1846?

Answer 2

Sweeney Todd

Question 3

Marie van Goetham - a 14 year old dance student at the Palais Garnier in Paris - became the subject of an iconic work by which French artist?

Answer 3

Edgar Degas

Question 4

In which county of Ireland is Knock, the village celebrated as the site of a series of visions of the Virgin Mary in August 1879?

Answer 4

County Mayo

Question 5

What is a Devon rex?

Answer 5

Cat

Question 6

The Otto Cycle is the name given to the function of which type of engine?

Answer 6

Four stroke internal combustion

Question 7

In classical mythology, who, collectively, were Stheno, Euryale and Medusa?

Answer 7

Gorgons

Question 8

Which fictional group began its adventures On A Treasure Island in 1942 and ended them Together Again in 1963?

Answer 8

Famous Five

Question 9

Which country became known as The Cockpit Of Europe because it has so frequently been the battleground of Europe?

Answer 9

Belgium

Question 10

What is the name for a triangle which has three sides of differing lengths?

Answer 10

Scalene

Question 11

In biology, what is the name for the point of contact between one neuron and another, the junction across which a nerve impulse passes from an axon terminal to a neuron, muscle cell or gland cell, also known as a neuronal junction?

Answer 11

Synapse

Question 12

In art, what is the generally used French term for an object found by an artist and displayed as it is, or sometimes with minimal alteration?

Answer 12

Objet trouve

Question 13

Oeil de boeuf, or bull’s eye, is a French term referring to a 17th century type of which architectural feature?

Answer 13

Window

Question 14

Rehearsal for Disaster is the title of the first chapter of which novel by Paul Gallico, filmed in 1972 with a cast including Gene Hackman, Shelley Winters and Ernest Borgnine?

Answer 14

The Poseidon Adventure

Question 15

Which Arabic term is used as a title of respect for one who knows the Koran by heart?

Answer 15

Hafiz

Question 16

What is the collective name for the four largest moons orbiting Jupiter?

Answer 16

Galilean

Question 17

Given a licence in 1962, the oral vaccine widely used against poliomyelitis takes its name from which Polish-born American microbiologist who developed it in 1955?

Answer 17

Albert Bruce Sabin

Question 18

Of which larger family of animals is the badger a member?

Answer 18

Weasel

Question 19

Derived from the Old French for a coin, what word is used to denote the fineness of material such as silk?

Answer 19

Dernier

Question 20

How many years separated London’s 19th century Great Exhibition, and the 20th century Festival of Britain?

Answer 20

100

Question 21

Urchin is a Middle English word for which common insectivorous mammal native to mainland Britain?

Answer 21

Hedgehog

Question 22

Which English king instituted the Order of the Garter in 1348?

Answer 22

Edward III

Question 23

What name is given to the protecting and nourishing fluid in which a baby develops in the womb?

Answer 23

Amniotic fluid

Question 24

Paralysis agitans is a medical term for a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, now more usually referred to by the name of which English doctor who published the first detailed description of the condition in 1817?

Answer 24

Parkinson

Question 25

The Hindu god Ganesh or Ganesha is depicted as having the head of which animal?

Answer 25

Elephant

Question 26

Dead Cert, published in 1962, was the first novel by which crime writer?

Answer 26

Dick Francis

Question 27

Batavia, a Roman name for the Netherlands, was the capital of the Dutch East Indies; post independence, how is the city known today?

Answer 27

Jakarta

Question 28

The Stevie Wonder hit song Happy Birthday was written as a tribute to which public figure?

Answer 28

Martin Luther King

Question 29

Depending on their activities, which scatologically named insect is grouped into either rollers, tunnelers or dwellers?

Answer 29

Dung beetles

Question 30

The Tell Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado are amongst the stories collected under the title Tales Of Mystery And Imagination, the best known work of which American author?

Answer 30

Edgar Allan Poe

Question 31

Which actress, in a film entitled Klondike Annie, utters the quip “when choosing between two evils, I always pick the one I’ve never tried before”?

Answer 31

Mae West

Question 32

In the human heart, which membranous sac surrounds the heart?

Answer 32

Pericardium

Question 33

Which US physicist gave his name to zones of highly energised charged particles, trapped at high altitude in the Earth’s magnetic field?

Answer 33

James Van Allen

Question 34

The characters Buttons and Baron Hardup traditionally appear in which pantomime?

Answer 34

Cinderella

Question 35

Jewish people of Sephardic descent have ancestors who were resident in which part of Europe, from the Middle Ages until their persecution and mass expulsion from those countries in the last decades of the 15th century?

Answer 35

Spain and Portugal

Question 36

Jody Scheckter, Jacques Lafitte and Jochen Rindt were prominent competitors in the 1970s in which international sport?

Answer 36

Formula One

Question 37

By what name do we now know the element produced in the 18th century by Henry Cavendish and described by him as inflammable air?

Answer 37

Hydrogen

Question 38

Which silent film star became known as The Great Stone Face because of his deadpan demeanour?

Answer 38

Buster Keaton

Question 39

What name is given to the unsuccessful attempt by Mao Zedong between 1958 and 1961 to hasten the process of industrialisation and the improvement of agricultural production in China?

Answer 39

The Great Leap Forward

Question 40

Arrangement In Grey And Black was the original title, under which it was first exhibited in 1872, of an American painting now much better known by what name?

Answer 40

Whistler’s Mother