Quiz #24 answers

1. Three: Cain, Abel, and Seth

2. Wall•E [EVE stood for Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator]; Bette Davis

3. Ryan Seacrest; 1972

4. (a) the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (b) “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” [Loesser also wrote “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” among others]

5. The hypothesis is that every human now on earth is descended through a maternal line to a particular African woman who lived less than 200,000 years ago.

6. A day represents the time it takes for a planet to rotate on its axis or with respect to its star; Mars has a day only slightly longer than one on Earth

7. (a) Billie Holiday; (b) Adrian Peterson

8. Armistice Day (originally commemorating the end of the first World War); Decoration Day (originally commemorating the dead of the Civil War)

9. June 6, 1944; December 7, 1941

10. (a) someone who routinely buys and sells stocks or other securities on the basis of small short-term price movements, often in the same trading day (b) a time of youthful innocence (typically recalled with fondness, though not so as Shakespeare first used the term in Antony and Cleopatra )

Quiz #23 answers

1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937)

2. salmon

3. Howard Johnson’s

4. London; the New York SoHo is a contraction of South of Houston (Street).

5. They are made of chocolate cake with creamy filling; Hostess (owned by Interstate Bakeries Corporation) makes them.

6. He was a Taiwanese-born American scientist who was indicted on charges of stealing nuclear secrets on behalf of China while working at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He pleaded guilty only to improperly handling restricted data—the government dropped 58 other counts—and successfully sued the federal government for having leaked his name before filing charges.

7. Ho Chi Minh City

8. Hobart

9. Tahoe

10. Ivanhoe; Robin Hood

11. Don Ho

12. homeopathy

13. Bob Hope, who hosted or cohosted 18 times between 1940 and 1978

14. Horatio Alger Jr.

15. a cry of praise or adoration

16. The Ramones

Quiz #22 answers

1. two; the prohibitions against killing and stealing
2. surfing
3. 8
4. Bo Derek; Dudley Moore
5. John Reed; the October (Bolshevik) Revolution in Russia
6. for being the residence and office of the British prime minister
7. They were screenwriters and /or directors who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947, and were subsequently blacklisted (although Dmytryk eventually cooperated after being jailed). [Score half a point for referring only to the blacklisting.]
8. ten lords a-leaping
9. location
10. 4 1/8 by 9 1/2 inches [Score half a point for getting one dimension exactly and the other within a quarter inch.]

Quiz #21 answers

1. “snips [or snaps, or snakes] and snails and puppy dog tails”
2. Brazil
3. New Orleans; the Louisiana Superdome
4. glucose; dextrose
5. William Cowper
6. Posh, Ginger, Baby, Scary, and Sporty
7. a) cinnamon; b) turmeric; c) saffron; d) anise
8. a sailing ship or sailboat
9. Dune, by Frank Herbert

Quiz #20 answers

1. cleanser [the company’s full name is Faultless Starch/Bon Ami Company]; good friend
2. monosodium glutamate (MSG)
3. curing
4. a popular aquarium fish
5. origami
6. straw mats used as flooring in Japan
7. swami
8. Florida; Ohio
9. Indian Ocean; Indonesia
10. writing, primarily novels and short stories
[bonus question] painting [if you missed this, see top of quiz]

Quiz #19 answers

1. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

2. Ankara

3. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

4. bourbon whiskey [half point for saying “whiskey”]

5. three consecutive strikes

6. to quitting an undesirable behavior suddenly and completely, not gradually

7. to speak bluntly and honestly; to get to the heart of the matter

8. Benjamin Franklin

9. WKRP in Cincinnati

10. the wattle (The thing that protrudes above the beak is called as snood. Both become enlarged when the bird is aroused.)

11. the internal organs (heart, gizzard, liver, etc.), generally

12. “Turkey in the Straw”

Quiz #19 answers

1. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

2. Ankara

3. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

4. bourbon whiskey [half point for saying “whiskey”]

5. three consecutive strikes

6. to quitting an undesirable behavior suddenly and completely, not gradually

7. to speak bluntly and honestly; to get to the heart of the matter

8. Benjamin Franklin

9. WKRP in Cincinnati

10. the wattle (The thing that protrudes above the beak is called as snood. Both become enlarged when the bird is aroused.)

11. the internal organs (heart, gizzard, liver, etc.), generally

12. “Turkey in the Straw”

Quiz #18 answers

1. Cabaret

2. 200,000,000

3. Pelé

4. AT&T, also known as the Bell System

5. Francisco Franco; Spain

6. The Day After; Lawrence

7. Microsoft Windows (version 1.0)

8. Czechoslovakia

9. Michael Jackson

10. 1942; Henry Wallace [President Franklin Roosevelt replaced Wallace with Harry Truman on the 1944 ticket]

Quiz #17 answers

1. chocolate syrup

2. Geller claims the ability to bend spoons with his mind (and sometimes other psychic abilities), though he has recently been ambiguous about whether his “powers” are supernatural.

3. cubic zirconium

4. a collection of musical lead sheets (sheet music with melody, lyrics, and harmony)

5. Piltdown Man

6. They faked journalistic feature stories they wrote for, respectively, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and The New York Times; Cooke was forced to return her Pulitzer Prize.

7. The Onion

8. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; Henry Ford

9. Milli Vanilli; Rob [Pilatus] and Fab [Morvan]

10. a slug

Quiz #16 answers

1. the 1960s (1964)
2. 25; 625 sportswriters
3. a vote with nonbinding results
4. a political tool in the form of a poll whose primary purpose is to persuade, often by spreading rumors, rather than to gather data
5. horns
6. Family Feud; 100
7. Hillary Clinton and Oprah Winfrey, in that order. In 2007, Clinton was named by 18% of Americans and Winfrey by 16%. Incidentally, George W. Bush was the most-named man each of those years, but had fallen from 29% support in 2003 to 10% in 2007, just beating out Bill Clinton at 8%.
8. Doctor-assisted suicide had the most support, 56%, while banning handguns had the least, 29%. (Legalizing gay marriage had 40% support.)
9. Creationism was believed by 45%; astrology, by 25% (haunted houses, 37%). Fully 73% believed in some sort of paranormal phenomenon, most commonly ESP (41%).
10. Choice c) only received 39% support; the same percent said immigration should be kept at present levels, while 18% thought levels should be increased.

(For questions where I cross checked, Pew Research Center poll results were similar to Gallup.)

Quiz #15 answers

1. A trick is a group of cards won in a round, or the round in which the cards are won. Spades, hearts, skat, ruff, and whist are trick-taking games. See here for a longer list.
2. three goals or successes; cricket
3. Richard M. Nixon. He received the nickname from his senatorial opponent, Helen Douglas, but went on to trounce her.
4. Cheap Trick; “The Flame”
5. Stupid Pet Tricks; David Letterman
6. marshmallows and butter (or margarine)
7. a carbonated, fruit-punch-flavored soft drink
8. each person paying his own way in a social outing; also known as “going Dutch”
9. Treat Williams
10. Acne; tretinoin is marketed as Retin-A, and isotretinoin as Accutane.
11. Orson Welles; War of the Worlds

Quiz #14 answers

1. The St. Louis Cardinals
2. Each number is the sum of the two previous numbers, so that the series is 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8….
3. Meet the Press, first aired in 1947; Guiding Light (formerly The Guiding Light), which began in 1937 and moved to television in 1952
4. the Twilight series, written by Stephanie Meyer
5. The series indicates the year in which the bill’s current design was adopted; letters after the year indicate changes deemed minor.
6. A series circuit, exemplified by old-fashioned Christmas lights, connects each element (or resistor, such as a bulb) in a single path; a parallel circuit connects them in a ladder-like structure, allowing one element to fail without affecting the others.
7. a. symbols of the chemical elements, arranged by atomic number; H [for helium]
b. United States states, in order of admission to the union; Alaska, Hawaii
c. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s Five Stages of Grief; bargaining
d. prime ministers of Canada, chronologically; Stephen Harper

Quiz #13 answers

1. thimerosal (or thiomersal); autism
2. Greek culture; the Louvre Museum, in Paris
3. Pearl S. Buck; China
4. The main character is a homicide detective who is inexplicably transported from the present day to the year 1973.
5. Asteroids; Atari
6. Florida; Wolfgang Mozart
7. agriculture/harvest; Saturnalia
8. William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope
9. The Neptunes, Pharrell and Chad Hugo, are best known for producing hip hop and pop records by artists such as Nelly, Justin Timberlake, and Britney Spears.
10. a dwarf planet

Quiz #12 answers

1. Ian McEwan

2. The Million Man March; 1995

3. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury

4. mortal; venial

5. Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo

6. The forcible relocation and internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Canada passed a similar bill.

7. (a) Mike Huckabee; (b) Jesse Jackson; (c) a monster; (d) that she had come under sniper fire

8. (a)(4); (b)(4); (c)(2); (d)(3); (e)(1)

9. seppuku and harakiri

Quiz #11 answers

1. Columbus Day; October 13 (the second Monday; prior to 1971 the federal holiday was October 12)

2. Tom Clancy; a Russian nuclear submarine

3. Russia; 1917

4. baseball slugger Reggie Jackson; the 1970s

5. 16; Munich

6. Robert Frost

7. An unexpected event, particularly one engineered by a candidate or party, that will cause an election to suddenly sway one way or another. The term gained popularity in 1980 when used to suggest that President Jimmy Carter might engineer a rescue or deal to release American hostages being held in Iran, and was then used in connection with the allegation that supporters of Ronald Reagan, his successor, had made a deal to delay their release until after the November election.

8. Libra and Scorpio

9. In the Roman calendar, from which the modern Gregorian calendar is derived, the year originally began with March, making October the eighth month.

10. NBCAM is promoted via a pink ribbon; its focus is “encouraging women to take charge of their own breast health, by practicing regular self-breast exams, making sure to schedule an annual mammogram, adhering to prescribed treatment and knowing the facts about recurrence.” [score the second half of the question correct if your answer emphasized awareness and/or detection by individual women rather than, for example, finding cures or preventative measures.]

Quiz #10 answers

1. bitterness, saltiness, sourness, and umami

2. Brazil

3. Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men

4. Sweet’n Low; saccharine

5. boxing

6. Quince años (or Quinceañera)

7. (a) [1900]; (e) [1912]; (d) [1932]; (b) [1963]; (c) [1978]

See http://www.candyusa.org/Classroom/timeline.asp

8. high-fructose corn syrup; aside from the abundance of corn grown in North America, HFCS is used because in place of sugar because of price-support systems (subsidies and tariffs) that make sugar more expensive.

9. Sweet Valley High

10. Popeye

Quiz #9 answers

1. 300; 12
2. a number that is the sum of its factors (excluding the number itself). For example, the factors of 6 are 1,2, and 3, which add up to 6.
3. Nadia Comăneci
4. the ability to determine the pitch (e.g. A, B, C) of a sound or musical note by ear, or to sing at a particular pitch, without using any external basis of comparison
5. 2400; 36
6. Some Like It Hot (1959); the “girlfriend” is played by Tony Curtis.
7. …Now Change; …Crime
8. The phrase typically refers to a market in which no buyer or seller has the individual ability to set the price of a good or service. The characteristics of such a market are usually said to be high information (all information about the product known to all parties); homogenous (fungible) products; a multitude of buyers and sellers; and minimal entry barriers for new competitors.
9. I had finished; I have finished; I will have finished.
10. the United States Constitution; 1787

Quiz #8 answers

1. Steve Martin
2. yards; four times. The designation “small” comes from the diameter, not the length.
3. Vatican City, with about 110 acres and about 800 residents
4. It was commissioned by Walt Disney as accompaniment to the ride of the same name, which debuted at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York and was afterward installed at Disney theme parks.
5. Edward Jenner
6. quarks
7. Volkswagen Beetle [half a point for Volkswagen]
8. one billionth
9. (a) Frank Sinatra; (b) John Cougar Mellencamp; (c) Blink-182; (d) Carrie Underwood

Quiz #7 answers

1. André the Giant
2. the giant tortoise
3. the giant sequoia
4. Sandy Allen
5. Paul Bunyan; Babe the Big Blue Ox
6. Willie Mays; New York City and San Francisco
7. the Cardiff Giant
8. Gargantua
9. (a) Giant; (b) Giant Steps; (c) gas giant; (d) Green Giant

Quiz #6 answers

1. Stephen Foster
2. Mormon settlers in Utah
3. Benito Mussolini
4. Wilma Rudolph; Rome
5. Chile; General Augusto Pinochet
6. Egypt; Camp David
7. most career hits; Ty Cobb
8. Iraq, which had recently invaded neighboring Kuwait
9. Kenneth Starr
10. General David Petraeus [or Ambassador Ryan Crocker]

Quiz #5 answers

1. (d)
2. intelligent design; half a point if you said “creationism.”
3. Larry Mendte; he was accused of repeatedly accessing his former co-anchor Alycia Lane's e-mail accounts with a stolen password.
4. Ontario
5. He was shot in a duel by Aaron Burr, the sitting vice president.
6. The ten-dollar bill
7. Dr Pepper
8. b. Pepper has been in use at least 4000 years in India, and was also in use in Europe and Asia in ancient times, although it is true that European explorers helped to spread its use further.
9. (a) 3; (b) 2; (c) 1; (d) 4

Answers to quiz 4 [Eli Lilly]

Run cursor to highlight the line below each question to see answers.

1. Chemist Eli Lilly founded the eponymous pharmaceutical company in:
a) 1876 b) 1896 c) 1916 d) 1936
a) 1876
2. In 1953, the US Central Intelligence Agency gave Eli Lilly a $400,000 grant to supply what chemical substance? What did the CIA use it for? [half point each]
LSD; mind-control experiments
3. Eli Lilly made news in August 2008 when it agreed to purchase what controversial product line from what chemical giant? [half point each]
Polisac, including the articificial hormone rBGH to boost milk production in cows, purchased from Monsanto.
4. “Eli” is a nickname for a student of which college or university? Where does the nickname come from? [half point each]
Yale; the nickname comes from benefactor and namesake Elihu Yale.
5. Who invented the cotton gin? What is a cotton gin? [half point each]
Eli Whitney; a cotton gin is a machine that separates the cottonseed from the fiber surrounding it.
6. Match the person with the description: [half point each; one number doesn’t match any letter]
(a) Eli Manning
(b) Eli Wallach
(c) Eli Sunday
(d) Eli Stone

(1) title character of ABC lawyer show
(2) NFL quarterback
(3) preacher character in the movie There Will be Blood
(4) Actor in movies like The Magnificent Seven, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and Nuts who continues to act into his 90s.
(5) architect who designed the Burj Dubai, set to become the world’s tallest building
(a)(2); (b)(4); (c)(3); (d)(1)
7. Match the person with the description: [half point each; one number doesn’t match any letter]
(a) Evangeline Lilly
(b) Lilly Ledbetter
(c) Kristine Lilly
(d) Lilly Truscott

(1) losing plaintiff in a sex-discrimination case and speaker at the 2008 Democratic National Convention
(2) fictional character Hannah Montana's best friend, aka Lola
(3) actress on TV's Lost
(4) president of Argentina since 2005
(5) captain of US women's national soccer team
(a)(3); (b)(1); (c)(5); (d)(2)
8. Lille is a city of over 200,0000 people in what country?
France