The answers to all life’s problems, if all life’s problems were included in the earlier quiz.
Round 1
Question 1
What electronics company makes the Cyber-shot range of cameras?
Answer: Sony
1 point
Question 2
What was the name of the cyclone that struck New Orleans in August 2005 and resulted in over 1300 deaths, most as a result of the city’s flood defence system failing?
Answer: Katrina
1 point
Question 3
What word connects an orange fruit, a type of duck, a word for a Chinese bureaucratic scholar, and a form of the Chinese language?
Answer: Mandarin
1 point
Question 4
The Chinese app Douyin is the inspiration and sister product of what widely used entertainment app, with the latter having over one billion monthly users?
Answer: TikTok
1 point
Question 5
During an annual spring holiday festival, what foodstuff is rolled and chased down Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire, England - with the first person to reach the bottom of the hill winning the said foodstuff?
Answer: Cheese
*A wheel of Double Gloucester cheese is used.
1 point
Question 6
In the 1990 film Pretty Woman, from what phobia does Richard Gere’s character Edward Lewis suffer?
Answer: Acrophobia / fear of heights
1 point
Question 7
What two family members are named in the title of a 1972 hit for Chicory Tip, and a 1970 song by Cat Stevens, the latter also covered by Boyzone in 1995?
Answer: Father; son
*Chicory Tip got to number one with Son of My Father. Cat Stevens released Father and Son, which was named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the best 500 songs ever written.
2 points
Question 8
What three colours appear on the flag of Estonia?
Answer: Blue, black, white
3 points
Question 9
Not including the third slice of bread or any condiments, what are the four ingredients traditionally used as a filling in a club sandwich?
Answer: Bacon; turkey / chicken; lettuce; tomato
4 points
Question 10
Make the longest word possible from the following letters: ACCFFHHIN
Answer: Chaffinch
Up to 9 points
(*length of word equates to points awarded)
Round 1 points
(Maximum: 24)
Round 2
Question 1
From what country does the bánh mì sandwich originate?
Answer: Vietnam
1 point
Question 2
In cricket, what term is used to describe an over in which a bowler concedes no runs?
Answer: Maiden
1 point
Question 3
In the seven World Cup finals for which Bulgaria have qualified, all but four of the surnames of the players in their squads have ended with the letter ‘v’. With what letter did the other four names end?
Answer: I
*The four players whose names did not end with ‘v’ were Evgeni Yanchovski (1966), Milko Gaydarski (1970), Georgi Kamenski (1970), and Petar Mihtarski (1994).
1 point
Question 4
Radio DJ Jo Whiley, comedians Sarah Millican and Sanjeev Kohli, athlete Michael Johnson, and an early user named Laura have all lent their voices to what app produced by the NHS?
Answer: Couch to 5K
1 point
Question 5
Sauropods, cerapods, therapods, and thyreophorans are four of the classifications used to broadly differentiate types of what animal?
Answer: Dinosaur
*Sauropods were large four-legged herbivores with long necks. Cerapods were horned toothed herbivores. Therapods were three-toed carnivores. Thyreophorans were dinosaurs with hard growths or armour.
1 point
Question 6
What is the name of the philosophical theory founded by Jeremy Bentham that argues ethics should be guided by actions which maximise happiness across a group?
Answer: Utilitarianism
1 point
Question 7
Due to the country having no public railways, what two types of facilities appear on Hasbro’s Icelandic Monopoly game board instead of train stations?
Answer: Airport; bus station
*The Icelandic board has three airports and the main long-distance bus hub.
2 points
Question 8
Which two musicians wrote the 1984 Band Aid charity single Do They Know It’s Christmas?
Answer: Bob Geldoff; Midge Ure
2 points
Question 9
Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, which four monarchies signed the Quadruple Alliance in 1815, with the aim to ensure continued control over France and quash republicanism?
Answer: UK; Russia; Austria; Prussia
4 points
Question 10
In the Dark Knight film trilogy directed by Christopher Nolan, which actors respectively played the villains of Joker, Bane, Two-face, Scarecrow, and Ra’s al Ghul?
Answer: Heath Ledger; Tom Hardy; Aaron Eckhart; Cillian Murphy; Liam Neeson
5 points
Round 2 points
(Maximum: 19)
Total points
(Maximum: 43)
Round 3
Question 1
In which country is the canyon-adjacent Yungas Road, nicknamed The Death Road, which frequently saw 100-300 deaths a year before a safer alternative was opened in the 2000s, leaving the original mostly used by mountain bikers?
Answer: Bolivia
1 point
Question 2
What spice was so valuable in Roman times that when the Visigoths laid siege to Rome in 408AD they took 3000 pounds of it in the siege-ending ransom, alongside gold, silver, silk and animal hides?
Answer: Black pepper
1 point
Question 3
What type of object is repaired by a luthier?
Answer: Stringed musical instruments
1 point
Question 4
Despite a drop of 14 per cent going into 2024, what daily newspaper in the US currently has the highest print circulation, roughly twice that of the second-place New York Times - although it has less than half the New York Times’s online subscribers?
Answer: Wall Street Journal
1 point
Question 5
Since 1963, the 105 street lights on Chocolate Avenue in downtown Hershey, Pennsylvania have been shaped like what confectionery item?
Answer: Hershey’s kisses
1 point
Question 6
A gel-like substance named vitreous humor makes up approximately 80 per cent of the volume of what human organ?
Answer: Eye
1 point
Question 7
What are the names of the two primary international airports serving the city of Chicago?
Answer: O’Hare; Midway
2 points
Question 8
American Scottie Scheffler has just become the fourth male golfer to remain as world number one for an entire calendar year - that being January 1st to December 31st - since the rankings were introduced in 1986. Who are the other three men to achieve this?
Answer: Nick Faldo (1993), Greg Norman (1996), Tiger Woods (2000-2003, 2006-2009)
3 points
Question 9
What are the four ‘drawing room plays’ of Irish writer Oscar Wilde?
Answer: Lady Windermere’s Fan; A Woman of No Importance; An Ideal Husband; The Importance of Being Earnest
4 points
Question 10
What six counties make up Northern Ireland?
Answer: Antrim; Armagh; Down; Fermanagh; Londonderry; Tyrone
*Londonderry is also known as Derry.
6 points
Round 3 points
(Maximum: 21)
Total points
(Maximum: 64)
Round 4
Question 1
Vindobona, the Roman military camp in which emperor Marcus Aurelius is reported to have died, sat on the site of which current European capital city?
Answer: Vienna
1 point
Question 2
Spot-billed, dalmation, pink-backed, great white, brown, Australian, Peruvian, and American white are the eight extant species of what type of bird?
Answer: Pelican
1 point
Question 3
In the weeks after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, which Sesame Street character inadvertently appeared alongside Osama bin Laden on anti-US posters in Bangladesh after a printer used images from a joke website?
Answer: Bert
*The website was called ‘Bert is evil’ and argued that Bert is a criminal mastermind, placing his picture beside infamous figures across history.
1 point
Question 4
Derived from the French word for needle, what name is given to the cap or sheath on the end of a shoelace?
Answer: Aglet
*The French word for needle is aiguille.
1 point
Question 5
What building in Paris was constructed on the order of Louis IX to house relics including what were thought to be Christ’s crown of thorns, a piece and nails from the Holy Cross, and drops of Jesus’s blood?
Answer: Sainte-Chapelle
1 point
Question 6
The character Eric Wimp was the alter ego of which comic book superhero, adapted into a cartoon in the 1980s?
Answer: Bananaman
1 point
Question 7
In June 2024 approximately 20000 motorcyclists participated in a ride in memory of British TV chef Dave Myers, famous as one half of ‘The Hairy Bikers’, who had died in February. Between what two locations did the ride take place?
Answer: London; Barrow-in-Furness
2 points
Question 8
What are the two largest supermarket chains in Australia, accounting for a combined 65 per cent of the domestic market?
Answer: Woolworths; Coles
2 points
Question 9
The Cellar Tapes, by the Cambridge Footlights, won the first ever Perrier Award at the 1981 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Which six comedians, all also amongst the show’s nine-person writing team, performed the show?
Answer: Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Tony Slattery, Paul Shearer, Penny Dwyer
6 points
Question 10
Not including Gladwyn Jebb, who held the role in an acting capacity for three months, there have been nine Secretaries-General of the United Nations. In which nine present day countries were they born?
Answer: Norway; Sweden; Myanmar; Austria; Peru; Egypt; Ghana; South Korea; Portugal
*The Secretaries-General and their birthplaces have been: Trygve Lie (Norway), Dag Hammarskjöld (Sweden), U Thant (British Colonial Burma, now Myanmar), Kurt Waldheim (Austria); Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (Peru); Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egypt), Kofi Annan (Gold Coast, now Ghana); Ban Ki-moon (Chōsen, now South Korea); António Guterres (Portugal)
9 points
Round 4 points
(Maximum: 25)
Total points
(Maximum: 89)
Round 5
In Round 5, there is only one answer. The less clues you need to get it, the more points you receive. If you need only one clue, you receive 10 points; if you require two clues, you will receive 9 points, and so on.
However, you may only answer once. If you answer incorrectly, you receive zero points for the round.
What musical artist or group released all of the following songs?
Clue 1 (10 points)
Did You Ever Love Me
Clue 2 (9 points)
Peacekeeper
Clue 3 (8 points)
Sands of Time
Clue 4 (7 points)
Rattlesnake Shake
Clue 5 (6 points)
Everywhere
Clue 6 (5 points)
Gypsy
Clue 7 (4 points)
Landslide
Clue 8 (3 points)
Albatross
Clue 9 (2 points)
Little Lies
Clue 10 (1 point)
The Chain
Answer: Fleetwood Mac
Round 5 points
(Maximum: 10)
Total points
(Maximum: 99)
As always, I do hope all the answers are correct. And as low scores are expected, anything you got right makes you a star.
A downloadable version of the answers is attached, and as mentioned in the earlier message both the questions and answers are up on the website.
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And that is that. I hope you enjoyed the quiz, aren’t too angry with the question setter, and are enjoying the start of 2025. Until next time, may the world be good to you.
