Quiz #26

On a regular six-sided playing die, what is the sum of any two opposite sides – that is, the total when adding the dots on two opposite sides?

Question 2

At the 2025 World Snooker Championship, ten of the 32 competitors come from which Asian country which has never had a world champion in the sport but has around 60 million active players?

Question 3

What claymation children’s TV franchise originally saw one co-creator reticent to make the central character a penguin because he had already made a bunch of sea lions – although that sea lion shape did appear in the main character’s best friend, Robby the seal?

Question 4

On April 17, TV channel Peacock announced it is developing a television series based on which 1995 high school comedy film, with Alicia Silverstone – now 48 – set to reprise the role of Cher Horowitz thirty years after it made her famous?

Question 5

Easter Sunday 2025 fell on April 20, a date also associated with consuming what drug in US counter culture, reportedly due to a group of high school students in the 1970s meeting at 4.20pm to consume it?

Question 6

The name of which dinosaur translates from Greek to English as ‘roofed lizard’ due to palaeontologist Othniel Marsh believing the plates on its back overlapped like roof tiles?

Question 7

What two Welsh teams have played in the top flight of the English football league?

Question 8

What are the respective symbolic national flowers for the four countries of the UK?

Question 9

In education, for what five subject areas does the acronym STEAM stand?

Question 10

Make the longest word possible from the following letters: AAGILLORT

Round 1 points
(Maximum: 26)

Round 2

Question 1

At a panel discussion on the future of education held on April 8, a misunderstanding of how to read its common initialism led US Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to repeatedly refer to artificial intelligence by the name of what leading steak sauce brand – including saying that kindergarten children could soon be studying it?

Question 2

What Australian organisation, with tourist visitors experiences in Darwin, Alice Springs, Dubbo, Broken Hill, and Charleville, was founded in Cloncurry in rural Queensland in 1928 by Rev. John Flynn?

Question 3

What colour completes the title of the influential video game compilation released by Valve in 2007, which included the hit games Half Life 2 and Portal: The _____Box?

Question 4

Used as the logo of the sportswear brand he later founded, what was the nickname of the French tennis player Jean Lacoste?

Question 5

In Greek mythology, Arachne was turned into a spider after defeating the goddess Athena in what type of contest?

Question 6

Connected in a south-north line within the south of the country, Beja, Évora, and Santarém are the three largest geographic areas of which European nation?

Question 7

Which two England international footballers’ wives were involved in the so-called ‘Wagatha Christie’ libel case, described by one journalist as ‘the most ill-advised defamation case since Oscar Wilde filed a libel suit against a man who called him a “posing sodomite.”’?

Question 8

In which cities did the two official Live Aid concerts take place on July 13, 1985?

Question 9

Who are currently the five people next in the line of succession to the UK throne?

Question 10

What are the eight extant species of bear?

Round 2 points
(Maximum: 23)

Total points
(Maximum: 49)

Round 3

Question 1

From 1998 to 2003, the ‘Great War of Africa’ saw militaries and armed groups from at least eight African nations engage in conflict in which present day country, with the fighting and attached infrastructure destruction resulting in three to five million deaths?

Question 2

Director Tony Kaye said of his 1993 music video to ‘Runaway Train’ by US band Soul Asylum: ‘I’d argue it was the single most important thing that happened in the history of MTV’. The video featured 36 pictures of what, later adapted for UK and Australia releases, and followed a lead started by dairies in Des Moines in 1984?

Question 3

The Skeleton Coast, famously littered with shipwrecks, sits on the edge of which desert?

Question 4

With a circumference of 42m, ‘El Árbol del Tule’ is the broadest known tree in the world. A Montezuma cypress, in what country is it situated?

Question 5

On 38 occasions since 2014, satirical website The Onion has published a near-identical article with the headline ‘’No Way to Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens’. What recurring event in the US prompts each republishing of the article?

Question 6

US band The Lemonheads, Barbadian singer Shontelle, and American singer Chelsea Cutler have all released songs in which they describe wearing what item of clothing belonging to an ex-partner?

Question 7

On April 7 the price of stamps in the UK went up for the sixth time in a little over three years. How much do a first- and second-class stamp now cost?

Question 8

What are the only two film sequels to have won the Academy Award for Best Film?

Question 9

Although there is some variation – usually for the summer quadrant – what are the four ingredients used to represent the four seasons on a quattro stagioni pizza?

Question 10

In the US stock market, which high-performing technology companies make up the so-called ‘Magnificent Seven’?

Round 3 points
(Maximum: 21)

Total points
(Maximum: 70)

Round 4

Question 1

In astrophysics, a Lagrange point is the point at which a celestial body finds equilibrium between the gravitational influence of two larger celestial bodies, thus keeping it at a constant distance between these objects. How many Langrange points exist in the gravitational relationship between the sun and Earth?

Question 2

Which English palace is said to be haunted by the ghosts The Spectre of the Silverstick Stairs and The Scream Queen, believed to be Jane Seymour and Catherine Howard, the third and fifth wives of Henry VIII?

Question 3

‘She had a heart – how shall I say? – too soon made glad’ and ‘I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together’ are lines from which 19^th century poem about a vindictive duke showing a visitor a painting of his former wife?

Question 4

Known as 赤眉 (Chìméi) in Chinese, a 1^st century rebellion against the Xin dynasty saw peasants paint what feature of their face red in order to better distinguish their own side on the field of battle?

Question 5

To what items on men’s clothing does the ‘sometimes, always, never’ rule apply – although the rule is perhaps not as traditional as some advocates suggest, as it is believed to have started because Edward VII was too fat?

Question 6

What household object was invented by magnetron engineer Percy Spencer, supposedly after he began investigating why his and colleagues’ chocolate bars kept melting? The investigation also included ‘popping’ corn and exploding an egg.

Question 7

As a result of their parents’ marriage uniting the two families, the actresses Kate Mara and Rooney Mara are the great-granddaughters of the founders of which two NFL teams? The teams have ten Super Bowl titles between them and are both still owned by the families.

Question 8

In the Book of Matthew in the Bible, in the passage commonly referred to as the three temptations, what were the three actions Satan asked Jesus to do during his 40 days in the wilderness that are said to have tempted him to break his devotion to God?

Question 9

What are the four drums – one of which there are two – within a common five piece drum kit?

Question 10

What are the seven types of jump in the sport of figure skating?

Round 4 points
(Maximum: 22)

Total points
(Maximum: 92)

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.

In what year did the following events all occur?

Clue 1

Clue 2

Clue 3

Clue 4

Clue 5

Clue 6

Clue 7

Clue 8

Clue 9

Clue 10

Round 5 points
(Maximum: 10)

Total points
(Maximum: 102)