Quiz #85

Who, in 1726, travelled to the islands of Lilliput, Brobdignag, Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg, and Japan, before returning to sea and meeting the uncouth Yahoos and their civilised horses the Houyhnhnms?

Question 2

What international outdoor clothing and equipment company, based in California but named for a region in South America, started in the 1950s when founder Yvon Chouinard sold pitons after teaching himself to blacksmith?

Question 3

What company is projected to have the world’s largest initial public offering, or IPO, on June 12, with plans to raise $75bn based on a company valuation of $1.675t – despite the company recording losses of over $4bn in each of the last two years?

Question 4

What maxim to guide behaviour is known as ‘The Golden Rule’?

Question 5

What is the name of the demonic doll in the Child’s Play horror film franchise, the doll having taken to killing after the soul of a serial killer of the same name was transferred into it by voodoo?

Question 6

A complement to longlines, tori lines are used in the fishing industry to deter what type of animal from interfering with the fishing line?

Question 7

A match between which two teams – one of which is a host nation – will open the men’s football FIFA World Cup on June 11?

Question 8

What are the three ingredients required to make a béchamel sauce?

Question 9

In the Charles Perrault version of Little Red Riding Hood, published in the 17^th century, Little Red Riding Hood comments on what five parts of her grandmother’s body being large, unaware that it is a wolf wearing her grandmother’s clothes?

Question 10

Make the longest word possible from the following letters: DEEFIPSTU

Round 1 points
(Maximum: 25)

Round 2

Question 1

The two primary types of nuclear weapon are the atomic bomb and the hydrogen bomb, also known as the thermonuclear bomb. Which of the bombs uses fission, in which an atomic nucleus is split into smaller nucleus?

Question 2

Which Canadian country music star warmed up for her 12 nights of supporting Harry Styles at Wembley Stadium by playing for 200 people at a London pub on Saturday June 6?

Question 3

Also the name of the keystone that gives an arch structural integrity, what is the name of the project-based US high school course that asks students to undertake ‘praxis’ case studies to illustrate applied knowledge?

Question 4

What type of entertainment is known to have been organised at the funerals of royalty or heroes in ancient Sumer and Greece, with Greek poet Hesiod known to have won a tripod at one such event after the death of Amphidamas of Chalcis?

Question 5

What is the name of the largest airline in South America, created when Chile’s LAN-Chile merged with Brazil’s TAM Linhas Aéreas in 2012?

Question 6

Telling the story of Floria Tosca, her lover Mario Cavaradossi, and their failed efforts to keep the whereabouts of fugitive Cesare Angelotti a secret, French playwright Victorien Sardou’s play La Tosca was adapted into a 1900 opera by which Italian composer?

Question 7

The four-hour Subham ferry travels between the port cities of Nagapattinam and Jaffna in which two countries?

Question 8

Which three actors received Academy Award nominations for their performances in the 1994 film Pulp Fiction – one for best actor, one for best supporting actor, and one for best supporting actress – although none of them ultimately won the Oscar?

Question 9

Not including the US, which holds territory in the area, what five sovereign nations make up the region known as Micronesia?

Question 10

Article 87 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea lists six freedoms of the high seas that the convention covers, applicable to both coastal and land-locked countries. What six freedoms does the convention say all nations have on the high seas?

Round 2 points
(Maximum: 22)

Total points
(Maximum: 47)

Round 3

Question 1

The anti-wrinkle medication brand Botox manufactures its entire stock in which European nation?

Question 2

Not a worm, despite its name, and not a snake, despite its appearance, what is the name of legless lizard of the Anguis genus found throughout Europe?

Question 3

American singer Taylor Swift’s latest song, I Knew It, I Knew You, is written for which character in the new Toy Story 5 film, which will have its premiere on June 9?

Question 4

Digital clocks work by passing electricity through a crystal, with the oscillations of the crystal then counted and translated into a digit. What is the most common material with which to make this vibrating crystal?

Question 5

Prior to World War II, the worst massacre of the 20th century was committed from December 1937 to March 1938 by Japanese forces in which Chinese city?

Question 6

From 1569 to 1795, the First Polish Republic was a union between Poland and the Grand Duchy of which other European nation which today exists as an independent, but much smaller, nation?

Question 7

In 1921, at the age of 39, future US President Franklin D. Roosevelt began experiencing paralytic symptoms that would eventually confine him to a wheelchair. What disease was it long believed he had contracted? And what disease is now believed to actually have been the cause, following further research in 2003?

Question 8

In the standard model of elementary particles, the four types of gauge boson include the W boson, the Z boson, and what two other types of particles, both of which have names ending in the letters ‘on’?

Question 9

Not including Wally Nightingale, who was fired as the band was starting, and noting that Sid Vicious joined the band in 1977, two years after it started, who were the original four members of the British punk band The Sex Pistols?

Question 10

Unlike in the US, where the term is only used on one flavour, American ice cream manufacturer Häagen-Dazs sells what six ‘…and cream’ flavours in Europe?

Round 3 points
(Maximum: 20)

Total points
(Maximum: 67)

Round 4

Question 1

Meaning ‘reconquest’, what name was given to the military campaigns between the 8^th and 15^th centuries that sought to reestablish Christianity in the Iberian peninsula after the area had been taken by the Umayyad Caliphate?

Question 2

The novel Senbazuru, or Thousand Cranes, by Nobel Prize in Literature winner Kawabata Yasunari, tells the story of characters engaged in shame-ridden cross-generational affairs which, as well as amplifying their personal loneliness, act as a contrast to the ordered, manufactured beauty of what type of ceremony, the catalyst for their sexual relationships?

Question 3

Including an approximate $9bn net loss in 2025, which US government agency has run a multi-billion dollar deficit every year since 2007, driven by a near 50 per cent reduction in its use and an increase in retiree payments, leading to a current house debate on how the service can survive since it has already reached its maximum legal government borrowing limit?

Question 4

Which African nation is the only majority-Christian country in the world to have a national law allowing the death penalty for homosexuality, having introduced it in 2023 for ‘aggravated homosexuality’? Note that Nigeria, in which 12 northern states have the death penalty for homosexuality under local Shari’a law, is now majority Muslim and its federal law puts the maximum penalty for homosexuality as 14 years in prison.

Question 5

The northern German winter custom of Grünkohlessen involves the eating of what type of vegetable, usually with potatoes, sausage, and alcohol?

Question 6

Also known as masi in Fiji, siapo in Samoa, and fuya in Indonesia, and with only its initial letter changed to make its Hawaiian name kapa, what is the name of the barkcloth produced in the Pacific islands by pounding bark until it is thin before decoration?

Question 7

Known respectively as Bad Blue Boys and Delije, fans from which two football teams have been widely connected to the start of the Balkans War, the fans having rioted at a match in 1990 a week after Croatia held an election in which pro-independence parties had performed strongly?

Question 8

Since February 2025, three of the principle cast of the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer have passed away: Michelle Trachtenberg, Nicholas Brendon, and Anthony Head. What were the names of the three characters the actors played in the series?

Question 9

Of the 15 ‘marginal seas’ that exist within the Mediterranean Sea, what four touch the mainland of Italy?

Question 10

Not including fractional units, such as the cent, what seven different currency names are used across the 12 sovereign nations of South America?

Round 4 points
(Maximum: 22)

Total points
(Maximum: 89)

Round 5

In Round 5, there is only one answer. The fewer 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 which ocean are all of the following islands?

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: 99)