Season 4 - Week 3

Question 1

This genus of long-lived deciduous trees is native to Africa and Australia and most species are noted for their enormously thick trunks. Which unusual tree, sometimes called the ‘upside down tree’, serves as the national tree of Madagascar, Angola, and Senegal?

Answer 1

baobab or Adansonia

Question 2

Lake Kariba is the world’s largest reservoir by volume. It is formed by a namesake dam on which river, which passes through six countries before emptying into the Indian Ocean in Mozambique?

Answer 2

Zambezi

Question 3

Nikhil Banerjee and Vilayat Khan are sometimes regarded as two of the three great twentieth-century performers of which Indian stringed instrument? The resonating chamber of this instrument is made from a gourd, and many examples have a second gourd behind the top of the neck.

Answer 3

sitar

Question 4

Gaston Maspero, who coined the term ‘Sea Peoples’, oversaw the excavation of a temple complex in which Egyptian city? Among the oldest inhabited cities in the world, it is the site of the ancient city of Thebes and is also home to the Karnak temple complex.

Answer 4

Luxor (or al-ʾUqṣur)

Question 5

Which neoclassical sculptor’s 1801 work, Perseo trionfante (Perseus Triumphant) was modelled on the Hellenistic sculpture the Apollo Belvedere? When the Apollo Belvedere was taken to France from the Vatican Museums, Perseo trionfante (Perseus Triumphant) was displayed on its pedestal.

Answer 5

Antonio Canova

Question 6

Which five-letter Italian word is used in classical music as a tempo marker, indicating tempo slower or broader than lento but faster than grave [gra-vay]? Famous instances are the aria ‘Ombra mai fu’ from Handel’s opera Serse (Xerxes), and the slow second movement from Dvořák’s 9th symphony.

Answer 6

largo

Question 7

Which South American country is the second largest by population on the continent and the only one to have coastlines on both the Pacific and the Caribbean?

Answer 7

Colombia

Question 8

The serpent Damballa is among the best-known of which spirits of Haitian Vodou who act as intermediaries between the creator god Bondyé and humans? These spirits are analogous to the orishas of Cuban Santería and the Yoruba religion, and are sometimes described as equivalents of, and syncretized with, Roman Catholic saints.

Answer 8

Lwas or Loas (accept Loi or Luas)

Question 9

Which German philosopher is famous for the statement “Gott ist tot! Gott bleibt tot! Und wir haben ihn getötet.” (“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”), which first appeared in Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (The Gay Science) in 1882?

Answer 9

Friedrich Nietzsche

Question 10

As the founder and editor of Poetry magazine, Harriet Monroe helped launch the careers of many poets, including which poet whose first published work ‘Phases’ appeared in Poetry magazine in 1914? Monroe described him as “a flavorously original poetic personality” when writing about his collection Harmonium, which included the poems ‘The Emperor of Ice-Cream’ and ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’.

Answer 10

Wallace Stevens

Question 11

Which country has seen a series of protests since September 2022 following the death of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested by religious police for “improper” wearing of the hijab? This country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has dismissed the protests as foreign interference.

Answer 11

Iran

Question 12

Following Suleiman the Magnificent’s ascent to the throne in 1520, the Ottoman Empire saw a rise in the number of influential and powerful women controlling affairs within the imperial palace. What name is usually given to this period that lasted around 150 years?

Answer 12

The Sultanate of Women (or Kadınlar saltanatı; accept Reign of Women)

Question 13

Hyperbolic geometry is often called [BLANK] geometry or Bolyai-[BLANK] geometry after which Russian “Copernicus of geometry” who, in 1829, became the first person to publish details of a fully developed non-Euclidean geometry?

Answer 13

Nikolay Ivanovich Lobachevsky (accept Lobachevskian)

Question 14

James Theodore Bent and Mabel Bent were among the first Western archaeologists to investigate which city in Ethiopia? The historic capital of a long-lasting empire, this city has been in continuous habitation since 400 BCE and is the site of King Ezana’s Stele.

Answer 14

Axum

Question 15

In Haitian Vodou, what Lwa of death and cemeteries is commonly depicted as a skeletal figure wearing a top hat and black coattails?

Answer 15

Baron Samedi (or Bawon Samedi)

Question 16

In 1788, the botanist James Edward Smith founded a society dedicated to the study of natural history that he named after which Swedish scientist who devised binomial nomenclature and the modern system of biological taxonomy?

Answer 16

Carl Linnaeus or Carl von Linné (accept Linnean Society of London)

Question 17

Sometimes known as the Chilean pine, which unusual-looking coniferous tree, which has branches covered in spirals of tough, spiny, leaf-like scales, serves as the national tree of Chile?

Answer 17

monkey puzzle tree or Araucaria araucana (or monkey tail tree, piñonero, pewen)

Question 18

Which country saw a number of anti-government demonstrations in 2020 and 2021 known as the Strajk Kobiet (Women’s Strike) in response to a Constitutional Tribunal restricting access to abortion? These protests against the courts, the ruling Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice Party) and the Catholic Church were the largest in this country since the fall of Communism.

Answer 18

Poland

Question 19

Which Athenian playwright mocked Socrates in his comedy Nephelai (The Clouds), which Plato suggested contributed to Socrates’ trial and execution? This playwright also expressed his opposition to the Peloponnesian War in plays such as Lysistrátē (Lysistrata) and Hippeîs (The Knights).

Answer 19

Aristophanes

Question 20

Another poet who was first published in Poetry magazine was which author of ‘The Red Wheelbarrow’, ‘This Is Just To Say’ and Paterson who Wallace Stevens described as “disturbed to the core” in a letter to Harriet Monroe?

Answer 20

William Carlos Williams

Question 21

Which is the second largest African river to flow into the Indian Ocean after the Zambezi, doing so about 900 kilometres south of the Zambezi in Mozambique? The upper Zambezi used to flow into this river, but it changed its course due to uplift around 2 million years ago.

Answer 21

Limpopo

Question 22

Unlike its western counterpart which can be made from a variety of materials, the bansuri, the flute used in Indian classical music, is almost always made from what specific material? Indian flutes are typically between 30 centimetres (12 in) and 75 centimetres (30 in) in length, and roughly the thickness of a thumb.

Answer 22

bamboo (prompt on “wood”)

Question 23

Antonio Canova depicted which man as “Mars the Peacemaker” in a work now on a display in Apsley House in London? This man was responsible for the looting of the Apollo Belvedere from the Vatican, and Canova also depicted this man’s sister Pauline in his work Venus Victrix.

Answer 23

Napoléon I Bonaparte (accept either name; do not accept “Napoleon II”, “Napoleon III”, or “Louis-Napoleon”)

Question 24

Which seven-letter Italian word is used in classical music for a generic fast tempo, quicker than moderato but slower than vivace [vee-VA-chay]? This is a very common main tempo for first movements in symphonies, sonatas and other instrumental works.

Answer 24

allegro

Question 25

Harriet Monroe wrote that which poet, the author of ‘Oread’, “carries English poetry back to the Greeks more instinctively than any other poet”? This poet’s first published works were submitted to Poetry magazine by Ezra Pound, with whom she co-founded the Imagist movement.

Answer 25

H.D. (accept Hilda Doolittle)

Question 26

In 1858, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace presented papers to the Linnean Society that first introduced the idea of natural selection. The following year Darwin published which book that explored the idea of natural selection and sought to explain the diversity of life?

Answer 26

On the Origin of Species

Question 27

Not to be confused with the South American country, Columbia (spelt with a ‘u’) is the state capital of which US state?

Answer 27

South Carolina

Question 28

Nietzsche would reuse his “God is dead” statement in a four-part work written from 1883 to 1885, in which the title person is an Iranian prophet who is traditionally said to have lived millennia ago and who founded a religion that still exists. Which prophet?

Answer 28

Zarathustra or Zoroaster (accept Also sprach Zarathustra or Thus Spoke Zarathustra)

Question 29

A non-Euclidean geometry is one that does not satisfy which of Euclid’s postulates? This postulate states that if a straight line intersects two straight lines such that the sum of the interior angles of intersection is less than two right angles then the two lines must intersect on the side of the interior angles.

Answer 29

parallel postulate or fifth postulate

Question 30

Which Western instrument that came to India in the early 19th century with the military bandsmen of the East India Company, is played by Indian classical musicians sitting cross-legged and holding their instrument vertically and upside-down?

Answer 30

violin (accept fiddle)

Question 31

The national tree of Finland is which striking deciduous tree with the binomial Betula pendula? Found throughout Eurasia, this tree can be identified by its unusual white peeling bark.

Answer 31

silver birch (prompt on “birch”)

Question 32

Another Roman copy of a Greek sculpture that Napoleon took from Rome depicts which two figures from classical mythology? In one Canova sculpture inspired by that statue, one of these figures passes the other a butterfly, and in another of Canova’s sculptures, one of these figures “revives” the other with a kiss.

Answer 32

Cupid and Psyche (both required; accept either Eros or Amores for Cupid)

Question 33

The earliest influential figure in the Sultanate of Women is which Ruthenian-born woman who was Haseki Sultan, or chief consort, to Suleiman the Magnificent? She acted as Suleiman’s advisor in state, foreign and diplomatic affairs, corresponded with European kings such as Sigismund II of Poland, and commissioned public buildings such as the bathhouse in Istanbul that bears her name.

Answer 33

Hürrem Sultan (accept Roxelana, Anastasia Lisowska, Aleksandra Lisowska; do not accept “Roxana”)

Question 34

Which cigar-smoking Lwa of Haitian Vodou is often depicted with a cane and straw hat? This Lwa is associated with crossroads because he opens and closes the gate between Earth and the realm of the gods.

Answer 34

Papa Legba

Question 35

Which French author wrote the play Socrate (Socrates), which depicts the final hours of the philosopher’s life? This author is also known for mocking the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz with the character of Dr. Pangloss in a satirical novella of 1759.

Answer 35

Voltaire (or François-Marie Arouet)

Question 36

Which waterfall on the Zambezi is over 100 metres high and 1,700 metres wide and produces the world’s largest sheet of falling water? Its Sotho name translates as “The Smoke that Thunders” and it was given its English name by the explorer David Livingstone in 1859.

Answer 36

Victoria Falls or Mosi-oa Tunya or Shungu Namutitima

Question 37

Ni unas menos (“not one [woman] less”) is a feminist movement established in 2015 that protests against violence against women across Latin America, but is most active in which country? Pope Francis condemned the 2020 legalisation of abortion in this country, the country of his birth.

Answer 37

Argentina

Question 38

Which seven-letter Italian word is used in classical music for a fairly slow tempo, slower than moderato but faster than adagio? This is a very common choice for the slow movement in a symphony, such as the famous one with the timpani stroke from Haydn’s Surprise symphony.

Answer 38

andante

Question 39

Socrates, Aristotle and Averroes are among the philosophers that appear in the first part of which 14th-century epic poem? The poem’s author and his guide encounter them in Limbo among other virtuous non-Christians.

Answer 39

Divina Commedia or Divine Comedy (accept Inferno)

Question 40

A bifurcation on the river Cuando connects the Zambezi Basin with an endorheic basin that is usually named after which desert that covers much of Botswana, Namibia and South Africa?

Answer 40

Kalahari

Question 41

Colombia is also the name of a community in the Mexican state of Nuevo León that is linked to the Texan city of Laredo by a bridge crossing which major river?

Answer 41

Rio Grande or Río Bravo del Norte

Question 42

Which woman, the daughter of Hürrem and Suleiman, is often considered the most powerful princess in the history of the Ottoman Empire? After Hürrem’s death, this woman became Suleiman’s advisor in foreign affairs and also sometimes accompanied him on military campaigns. Like her mother, she also sponsored public building works, with two mosques in Istanbul bearing her name.

Answer 42

Mihrimah Sultan (accept Cameria, Qamariah, Hanim Sultan)

Question 43

Kathleen Kenyon excavated a tower, considered to be the world’s oldest known stone building, in which Palestinian city in the West Bank? This city has been inhabited non-continuously since 9,000 BCE, and is also known for its ancient walls.

Answer 43

Jericho (Arīḥā or Yerīḥō)

Question 44

Vikku Vinayakram plays Carnatic music with the ghatam and is credited with popularising it. This Indian percussion instrument is essentially which everyday rural object with a narrow mouth, though the version used in Carnatic music is specially made with iron filings and other metals added?

Answer 44

clay pot (accept jug and equivalents)

Question 45

Elliptic geometry modifies Euclid’s second postulate as well as rejecting the validity of the parallel postulate and is often (although not universally) considered non-Euclidean. Which German mathematician gives his name to an alternative term for elliptic geometry, which he helped to develop in the mid-19th century? This man also gives his name to a branch of differential geometry that studies his namesake manifolds.

Answer 45

Bernhard Riemann (accept Riemannian)

Question 46

Nietzsche’s Zarathustra notes that the death of God entails a risk of nihilism, and claims there is a need for an ideal type of human that can create new values. What term is used for this type of person? The most common English translation for this term is also the name of a character in popular culture.

Answer 46

Übermensch (Superman or Beyond-Man; literally “Overhuman”)

Question 47

The national tree of Yemen is which tree native to the Socotra archipelago in the Arabian Sea? These trees have an unusual umbrella-like appearance and produce a striking red sap that gives the tree its best-known name.

Answer 47

dragon’s blood tree (accept dragon tree or Dracaena cinnabari)

Question 48

Another member of the Linnean Society was a Scottish botanist who, in 1827, first observed what random motion of particles in a fluid while he was studying pollen under a microscope? This phenomenon is named after him.

Answer 48

Brownian motion (accept Robert Brown)

Question 49

While Canova produced several works for the Bonapartes, he also produced a statue of which other military leader dressed as a Roman general, although it was destroyed in a fire in 1831? This figure is also depicted as Zeus in a sculpture by Horatio Greenough [GREE-now], and a fresco by Constantino Brumidi depicts his “Apotheosis”.

Answer 49

George Washington

Question 50

Nietzsche started out as an admirer of this German opera composer, praising him in Die Geburt der Tragödie (The Birth of Tragedy), but would later change his mind, and in Der Fall [BLANK] (The Case of [BLANK]) from 1888, he would criticize the composer for his involvement in nationalism and anti-Semitism. Which composer?

Answer 50

Richard Wagner

Question 51

Perhaps the most powerful woman during the Sultanate of Women was which woman who was the Haseki Sultan to Ahmed I and exerted considerable influence during the reigns of her sons Murad IV and Ibrahim, and her grandson, Mehmed IV? A former slave who rose to prominence in the imperial harem, her time as regent saw conflicts against Venice and the Safavids, and she ended the practice of fratricide.

Answer 51

Kösem Sultan (accept Mahpeyker Sultan, Anastastasia, Nāʾib-i Salṭanat, Umm al-Muʾminīn, Ṣāḥibet al-Maḳām)

Question 52

Which Argentinian author included the short story ‘La Busca de Averroes’ (‘Averroes’s Search’) in his collection El Aleph? The story imagines the difficulty Averroes faced in translating Aristotle’s poetics when theatre was not a feature of Averroes’s culture.

Answer 52

Jorge Luis Borges

Question 53

Commonly depicted drinking rum and chilli peppers and symbolised by a black rooster, this Lwa of death is the consort of Baron Samedi. She is commonly syncretized with a similarly-named Irish saint whose feast day is celebrated as Imbolc. Name either of these women.

Answer 53

Maman Bridgitte or Saint Brigid (accept Brigida, Brigita, Bridget)

Question 54

Which poet began a twenty-year correspondence with Harriet Monroe after she was first published in Poetry magazine in 1915? Monroe disliked this modernist poet’s stanza forms and syllabic verse, which are evident in her work ‘Poetry’, which begins “I too, dislike it”.

Answer 54

Marianne Moore

Question 55

In which country did five million women form a 620-kilometre-long human chain called Vanitha Mathil (Women’s Wall) in 2019 to protest against sex discrimination? The protest followed a backlash to the Supreme Court overturning a rule that prevented women of a menstruating age entering the Sabarimala Temple. The wall was disrupted by religious groups and members of this country’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Answer 55

India

Question 56

Which six-letter Italian word is used in classical music for an extremely fast tempo, even faster than vivace? A famous example is the finale of Summer from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

Answer 56

presto

Question 57

Another early member of the Linnean Society was Edward Jenner who is known as the “father of immunology” for having devised the world’s first vaccine. Jenner used cowpox to inoculate against which deadly disease that was eradicated in 1980 due to a global vaccination effort?

Answer 57

smallpox (or Variola)

Question 58

In 1899, which German mathematician proposed a set of 21 axioms (later reduced to 20) in Grundlagen der Geometrie (The Foundations of Geometry) as a modern axiomatization of Euclidean geometry? This man gives his name to ‘spaces’ that extend the vector methods of Euclidean space to infinite-dimensional space and are commonly used to formulate quantum mechanics.

Answer 58

David Hilbert

Question 59

Another Columbia is British Columbia, the capital of which, Victoria, lies on which island that shares its name with a nearby major city?

Answer 59

Vancouver Island

Question 60

Agatha Christie’s husband Max Mallowan was among those to work on the excavation of which Assyrian city that is today part of the Iraqi city of Mosul? The largest city in the world in the 7th century BCE, this city was also the site of the Great Library of Ashurbanipal that was excavated by Austen Henry Layard and Hormuzd Rassam.

Answer 60

Nineveh (accept Naynawā, Ninua, Nīnewe)