Round 1
Question 1
What male grooming tool was originally crafted from shells or stones before the ancient Egyptians created metal versions, which in turn led to the ‘straight edge’ design that dominated for hundreds of years until American King Camp Gillette patented a design with a disposable ‘double edge’ piece in 1901?
*Although Gillette’s name went on his company – and face on its products – he struggled until teaming up with engineer William Nickerson, who worked out the mechanics of industrially-created replaceable blades. It is also often erroneously claimed that Gillette invented both the safety razor and the ‘two-part pricing’, or ‘razor and blades’, business model that sells a cheap core product for which people need high-profit replacement parts; instead, the safety razor had been in use in the 19th-century, but Gillette saw the value in disposable blades, while his initial razors cost approximately half a week’s wage. Gillette’s business ultimately made him very wealthy, but he himself was not wholly a capitalist: he held a ‘utopian socialist’ view of the world, arguing people should live in one community with all industry under one publicly-owned business.
1 point
Question 2
Ended in 1986, pass laws and passbooks were an internal passport system based on race that existed in which country?
1 point
Question 3
What type of fish is traditionally ‘jellied’ in a dish from east London?
1 point
Question 4
On March 28, Pope Leo XIV became the first pontiff to visit which European microstate since 1538, telling a crowd that it is the small that make history and that it should put its renowned prosperity ‘at the service of law and justice’?
*Standing beside a royal family with inherited wealth, and addressing a crowd in a nation with the highest concentration of billionaires in the the world, the pope condemned the chasm between the rich and the poor. He presented Prince Albert a work depicting Francis of Assisi, who gave up his own inherited wealth in order to aid the poor.
1 point
Question 5
Due to its array of overseas territories, which European country uses the most time zones of any nation in the world, with a total of 13 if its claim to land in Antarctica is recognised?
*Although there is only one time zone in mainland France, the country has six more in the Pacific (three in French Polynesia, two covering New Caledonia and Wallis and Fortuna, plus a further one on the uninhabited Pacific territory of Clipperton Island); one for its Caribbean territories; one covering both Saint Pierre and Miquelon near Canada and French Guiana; two for its Africa-adjacent Indian Ocean islands; and one recognised and one disputed in the Antarctic region. The US and Russia have the next most time zones, with 11.
1 point
Question 6
Which emergency service would use a PIT maneuver?
*Standing for precision immobilization technique, a PIT maneuver is a way of stopping another car during a high-speed pursuit: the police car hits against the back corner of the fleeing car, causing it to spin, before then driving up next to it, generally pinning it to the side of the road. Several police forces have banner PIT maneuvers at high speeds due to their high degree of danger to those in both cars.
1 point
Question 7
What two countries have a coastline on the Bay of Biscay?
Spain
2 points
Question 8
The classical Latin alphabet contained 23 letters – 21 Latin letters, plus the adopted Greek letters Y and Z. What three letters have been added since the Middle Ages to represent sounds heard in Germanic languages, with all three written as adaptations of existing letters?
*J was the last letter to be added, a variation on I. U was a new letter created out of V, and W was two Vs. These were not the first new letters to be added to the alphabet: in the first century emperor Claudius oversaw the introduction of three letters, but none survived his reign.
U
W
3 points
Question 9
In the nursery rhyme ‘There was an old lady who swallowed a fly’, what six animals does the lady swallow between the fly and the horse that eventually kills her?
Bird
Cat
Dog
Goat
Cow
6 points
Question 10
Make the longest word possible from the following letters: GINOOPRSS
Up to 9 points
(*length of word equates to points awarded)
Round 1 points
(Maximum: 26)
Round 2
Question 1
How did a French sailor named Arthur reportedly accidentally give away the location of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle while going for a run on the morning of March 13?
*Arthur’s account on fitness programme Strava showed he ran 7.23km in a little under 36 minutes, with his route being a series of circles crossing the Mediterranean Sea north of Cyprus. This is not the first time military personnel leaving their Strava account on public has been a problem: in July 2023 a Russian submarine captain was assassinated while jogging, with Ukrainian forces said to have tracked his route in real time; in 2022 unknown people watching Israeli bases set up fake ‘segments’ in the compounds so that Strava would report on other app users running the route – a tool meant to encourage competition, but used to identify who was in the base, with those people’s Strava account subsequently tracked to other locations; and in 2018 Strava released a map to showcase how widely it was being used across the world, unaware that the map was revealing hidden US military bases in Afghanistan, Syria, and Djibouti.
1 point
Question 2
With a saint’s day mentioned in a popular Christmas carol, who was the first martyr of Christianity, having been stoned to death after denouncing Jewish authorities, according to the Bible’s Acts of the Apostles?
1 point
Question 3
Mareko Maumasi is one of the leading names in the production of what sort of kitchen equipment, with waiting lists for his items reportedly at three years and prices of special pieces costing over $4000?
1 point
Question 4
Situated off Mexico’s coast, the Gulf of Tehuantepec is most associated with what type of weather phenomenon?
*Many of the Pacific cyclones that strike central America and the west coast of the US form in the Gulf of Tehuantepec, including 2015’s record-breaking Hurricane Patricia, which has the notable records of having the most intense one-minute winds and being the fastest storm to move from a tropical storm to a category five hurricane, having done so inside 24 hours. The gulf also occasionally sees the an intense wind known as the Tehuano blow across it.
1 point
Question 5
What is the name of the character ‘tamed’ by Petruchio in the William Shakespeare play The Taming of the Shrew, with a shortened version of the name appearing in a Cole Porter comedy musical depicting a theatre group trying to put on a performance of the Shakespeare play?
*Despite being a comedy, The Taming of the Shrew has become one of Shakespeare’s most criticised plays due to its plot about taming – or bullying – an unwilling woman into a relationship, with Nobel Prize winning writer George Bernard Shaw calling it ‘altogether disgusting’ and ‘one vile insult to womanhood and manhood from the first word to the last’. The Cole Porter musical Kiss Me Kate premiered in 1948.
1 point
Question 6
In 2018, the city of Tokyo moved what type of market – the largest of its type in the world – from the Tsukiji district to a new larger complex on reclaimed land in Toyosu?
1 point
Question 7
First featured in poet T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, what are the names of the two thieves in the long-running musical Cats – one of whom inspired the name of the band that recorded the 1970 hit ‘In the Summertime’?
Rumpleteazer
2 points
Question 8
A key part of establishing an international law on pre-emptive self-defence conducted within another nation’s territory, the 1837 Caroline Affair involved which three modern day countries, one of whose military crossed an international border, killed one person, set fire to a steamboat, and sent it over a waterfall?
*Dissatisfaction with British rule in Canada led to a breakaway group establishing its own ‘Republic of Canada’ on Navy Island on the Niagara River, to which American sympathisers sent supplies using a steamboat named Caroline. In response, British and loyalist Canadian military snuck into the US and destroyed the boat. While the British claimed the vessel was a legitimate target, the US said the American citizens were dealing with a foreign nation, and therefore the UK was not legally allowed to be involved. Subsequent discussions led to an agreement that a nation could only incur onto another’s territory for self-defence if the need for self-defence is overwhelming, immediate, and without alternative – a legal precedent still generally held today, with foreign incursions meant to pass the so-called Caroline Test.
Canada
UK
3 points
Question 9
Who were the four original members of the British rock band Queen?
Brian May
John Deacon
Roger Taylor
4 points
Question 10
For what do each of the letters stand in the luxury goods company LVMH which, as well as the brands in its name, also owns Tiffany & Co., Bulgari, Christian Dior, Givenchy, and Sephora?
Vuitton
Moët
Hennessy
4 points
Round 2 points
(Maximum: 19)
Total points
(Maximum: 45)
Round 3
Question 1
The Spanish town of Numantia is the subject of a Spanish language expression, ‘defensa numantina’, which means a last-ditch, even suicidal resistance to a force or idea, and relates to the town’s 2nd-century BC repelling of which invading army?
1 point
Question 2
Worn in Somali culture, what is a dirac (dee-ra)?
1 point
Question 3
What part of the body is removed in a glossectomy?
1 point
Question 4
Observed in 2023 but with details only published in scientific journals Science and Scientific Reports in March, a group of what type of animal has been filmed aiding a mother give birth, possibly the first example of a non-primate animal directly assisting a live birth?
*Using a drone and underwater cameras to observe a pod of sperm whales near Dominica, scientists on Project CETI saw how the whales gathered around the mother as she gave birth over 34 minutes, with one female appearing to direct others. Once the calf was born, the other whales actively took turns lifting it to the surface, as newborn sperm whales cannot swim, with the mother lifting the calf for around 30 per cent of the time, and a core group of her and three other females combining for 96 per cent of the lifting. Curiosities for the scientists were that non-kin members of the group aided the mother, and that during the event pilot whales swam underneath the group for reasons unknown. Once the calf was safe the whales broke away into smaller groups, and the calf was spotted a year later, meaning it had surveyed the most perilous year of a sperm whale’s life and had a good chance to live to adulthood.
1 point
Question 5
In 2024 a research team from the Scottish Association for Marine Science, or SAMS, discovered a process occurring in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone 4km below the surface of the Pacific Ocean which raised doubt about how complex life on earth formed. What chemical element did the SAMS team find was being produced in the ocean depths?
*The SAMS team found that charged polymetallic nodules containing cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese were producing an electrical charge similar to a small battery, which was sufficient to break water into hydrogen and oxygen – a hydrolysis reaction similar to photosynthesis, but without requiring light. This ‘dark oxygen’ places doubt that algae and plant life were the sole suppliers of life-evolving levels of oxygen, and also raises the possibility that deep sea mining is causing more environmental damage than initially thought.
1 point
Question 6
Referred to in an idiom that means passing the point of no return, over what now-Italian river did then-governor Julius Caesar lead an army in 49BC, willingly breaching a rule that prohibited people bringing armies into Italy and kick-starting the civil war that eventually led to Caesar becoming dictator of the Roman Empire?
1 point
Question 7
A municipal mayoral election in the French town of Arcis-sur-Aube held on March 22 gathered international attention due to two of its candidates having internationally recognised names. Although they are spelt differently from the more famous examples, what were the names of the candidates, who finished first and third respectively, with one being a well-known name from World War II, and the other a current world leader?
*In a close race, centre-rightist Charles Hittler won re-election with just under 38 per cent of the vote, while far right candidate Antoine Renault-Zelienski came third with 30 per cent. Splitting the two, with 32 per cent, was Annie Soucat. Hittler said two other members of his family, both also called Hittler, ran in other local elections in France.
Zelienski
2 points
Question 8
According to the campaign group Stop Hazing, what are the three components that define hazing?
*In the US, 44 states have some form of law banning hazing, with Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Wyoming the only states which do not.
Humiliation (or endangerment)
Disregard of individual’s willingness to participate
3 points
Question 9
The name of what four present-day English counties include the word ‘ford’?
Herefordshire
Hertfordshire
Staffordshire
4 points
Question 10
In 2023, 23-year old Richard Turere, a member of the Maasai tribe in Kenya, won the €20000 European Young Inventor Prize for a device he had devised as an 11-year old when tasked with scaring lions away from his father’s cattle, having noticed lions did not approach when they saw moving torches. What five items did Turere put into an electronic sequence to create his first flashing ‘lion lights’, upgraded versions of which are now used in several east African nations?
*Turere’s neighbours liked his idea, so soon seven cattle farmers in the community had his lion lights, the invention of which led a Kenyan private school to award him a scholarship. Turere said his earlier ineffective ideas had been simply to use fire or scarecrows, but his knowledge of electronics – having previously taken apart his mother’s radio and built a fan for the house using discarded car parts – helped him come up with a better idea. Lion lights are seen to not only save farmer’s cattle stock, but the lives of predators that were being killed to protect the herds.
5 points
Round 3 points
(Maximum: 20)
Total points
(Maximum: 65)
Round 4
Question 1
Having topped the rankings for six non-consecutive weeks in 1998, Marcelo Rios is the only man to have been a world number one ranked singles tennis player but never won a grand slam title in his career. From which South American country is Rios?
*Rios won six titles in 1998 and reached the final of the Australian Open, resulting in him twice climbing above Pete Sampras to become world number one. Three women have also been world number one but never won a grand slam singles event: Jelena Janković, also in 2008, the year she reached one grand slam final and two grand slam semi-finals; Dinira Safina in 2009, the year she reached two grand slam finals and a semi-final; and current player Karolína Plíšková, who reached the top of the rankings in 2017 after reaching the 2016 US Open Final and the 2017 French Open semi-final, and who would also lose the 2021 Wimbledon final.
1 point
Question 2
Despite holding the league’s joint record for the most wins in a single regular season, having won 116 games in 2001, what west coast Major League Baseball Team is the only current franchise to have never been to the World Series?
1 point
Question 3
Derived from the Greek word for ‘body’, what four letter suffix – which also spells a word in the English language – follows ‘centro-’, ‘peroxi-’, ‘ribo-’, and ‘lyso-’ in the names of parts of a cell?
1 point
Question 4
With an alcohol by volume figure of 96 per cent, making it one of the strongest alcohols in the world and illegal in many countries, Cocoroco is a Bolivian spirit made from what plant?
*Commonly referred to as Caimán, which is the main non-home distilled producer of the drink and features a caiman as its logo, Cocoroco is generally added to tea or water to produce a drink used in Bolivia’s colder Andes regions, where it is also offered to the Earth goddess Pachamama during ceremonies. The drink’s famed high alcohol content has also made tasting Cocoroco a tourist activity, although few Bolivians would drink it neat and health authorities only recommend consuming it in extreme moderation.
1 point
Question 5
In propositional logic, ‘affirming the antecedent’ is the argument that if A is true, B must be true. Also starting with ‘affirming the’, what is the name of the false inverse logic that says if B is true, A must be true, an example of which is that having established that when the lightbulb is broken, the room is dark, a dark room must mean a lightbulb is broken?
*The antecedent is the first portion of the causal logical equation (A), and the consequent is the second (B).
1 point
Question 6
In computing, what is the name given to a small application that performs a single task within a larger application or programme, with examples being a calculator, mini-game, or movie player on a webpage?
1 point
Question 7
In 2008 English actress Kate Winslet achieved the unusual feat of winning both the best actress and best supporting actress prizes at the Golden Globes. For what two films, both based in the 1950s, did Winslet win, one playing opposite Leonardo di Caprio as a wife in a collapsing relationship, and the other as a woman who has a relationship with a teenager and later resurfaces as a defendant in a Nazi war crime case?
The Reader
2 points
Question 8
What are the names of the three children of Errol and Maye Musk, two of whom sit on the board of electric vehicle company Tesla and one of whom started a film streaming platform for adaptations of romantic novels?
Kimbal
Tosca
3 points
Question 9
What is the main ethnic group in each of the four nations along the Nile between the river’s mouth and Lake Victoria, the source of the White Nile? The countries in question are Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, and Uganda
Sudanese Arab
Dinka
Baganda
4 points
Question 10
On its website, the Scottish tourism board highlights what six musical instruments as ‘key Scottish instruments’?
Tin whistle
Accordion
Fiddle
Clàrsach (harp)
Bodhrán (hand drum)
6 points
Round 4 points
(Maximum: 21)
Total points
(Maximum: 86)
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.
The following are all types of what foodstuff?
Clue 1
Mahdjouba
10 points
Clue 2
Almojábana
9 points
Clue 3
Marraqueta
8 points
Clue 4
Pão
7 points
Clue 5
Kulcha
6 points
Clue 6
Boule
5 points
Clue 7
Roti
4 points
Clue 8
Focaccia
3 points
Clue 9
Pita
2 points
Clue 10
Baguette
1 point
Round 5 points
(Maximum: 10)
Total points
(Maximum: 96)
