Round 1
Question 1
What homophones can mean a type of hot fruit and a sense of feeling cold?
1 point
Question 2
What fictional character’s name is spelt by placing The New York Stock Exchange stock symbols for Boeing, Toyota Motor Corporation, and Autonation one after the other?
1 point
Question 3
Chevron, horseshoe, Fu Manchu, and pencil are all types of what?
1 point
Question 4
What word completes the statement made multiple times in the UK’s Houses of Parliament to unpopular Prime Ministers and ministers: ‘In the name of God, __’?
1 point
Question 5
The grand strategy computer game series Hearts of Iron allows players to take control of almost any country in the world before, during, and after which war, leading to its latest release being criticised for promoting extremism due to the number of players who have been trying to win the war for immoral, extreme, or authoritarian regimes?
*As well as having an online community, Hearts of Iron IV allows players to ‘mod’ the game to create their own world, reportedly leading to versions that celebrate Nazi-ism, create an Islamic State caliphate, and engage in Crusades.
1 point
Question 6
The logo of which brand of lollipop was designed by Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí?
1 point
Question 7
What two gases are usually measured in an arterial blood gas test?
*The test generally looks at gas saturation and pressure, as well as blood pH.
Carbon dioxide
2 points
Question 8
The forfeit-based card game shithead asks players to play a card equal or higher than the previously played card, with any player unable to do so on their turn then forced to pick up the pile of played cards. Although rules to the game are often inexact, with games adding more special cards and forfeits, what two numbers have the special roles in the game of respectively resetting the pile and discarding the pile?
10
2 points
Question 9
The US celebrated its 250th year of independence on July 4. What three documents are called the ‘Charters of Freedom’ due to their importance in the nations founding?
Bill of Rights
United States Constitution
3 points
Question 10
Make the longest word possible from the following letters: ABCELOSST
Up to 9 points
(*length of word equates to points awarded)
Round 1 points
(Maximum: 22)

Round 2
Question 1
What word is the plural of a type of fruit, a soap company, and the name of an encyclopaedia produced by that soap company until 2018, when it ceased publication due to sales drops caused by the rise of the internet?
1 point
Question 2
What type of alcoholic drink is consumed with Rosie in the title of a 1959 book by Laurie Lee about growing up in a small village in England’s West Country, with the rural setting playing host to both moments of adolescent innocence and the village’s darker events?
*Although the tone of the book is primarily nostalgic and portrays a teenager growing up, darker images that appear within village life are suggestions of incest, a plan for gang rape, and a murder.
1 point
Question 3
World Cup organisers FIFA have been accused of favouritism and bowing to political pressure after it suspended a one-game suspension issued to Folarin Balogun, a player for which international team, which is due to play Belgium on July 6?
*Balogun, the US’s top scorer in the competition, was sent off for a foul in his side’s win against Bosnia-Herzegovina, an action that comes with an automatic one-game suspension, which may then be lengthened for serious incidents or cancelled if deemed a refereeing error. Controversially, and with many believing the decision was influenced by the US being hosts and US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio commenting on the matter, FIFA decided not to overturn the red card but to instead suspend Balogun’s punishment for one year, saying he will receive the punishment if he is involved in another similar incident. This is not the only suspension relating to the World Cup for which FIFA has been seen to be granting preferential treatment: Portuguese superstar Ronaldo was sent off in a pre-tournament game against Ireland, which initially warranted a three-match suspension that would have seen the player miss the first two games of the competition; FIFA, however, decided to reduce the mandatory ban to a single game and suspend the other two for a year, conveniently allowing the player to play in every game of the tournament.
1 point
Question 4
Which European nation’s top tier football season restarted from its summer break on July 3, precisely 3 days after the country finished competing at the 2026 World Cup?
*Only 3 of Sweden’s World Cup 26-man squad plays in the Swedish league, and Elliot Stroud, Taha Ali, Kristoffer Nordfeldt were all given the opening weekend off. Other competitions are also getting underway: Champions League qualifying starts on July 7, while Norway’s league is due to restart on July 11, the same day the country plays its World Cup quarter-final.
1 point
Question 5
In the 1880s, brothers Gustav and Ernst Klimt, alongside friend Franz von Matsch, formed the Künstler-Compagnie, an art collective based in which European country?
*Ernst died at only 29, after which Klimt and Matsch’s relationship deteriorated and the collective disbanded.
1 point
Question 6
What type of pest control device was made illegal in Scotland on July 1 due to being deemed an inhumane method of killing animals, with the device either trapping them until they starve or forcing them to rip themselves clear?
1 point
Question 7
Started this weekend, the new rugby union Nations Championship is a competition featuring the men’s teams that compete in Europe’s Six Nations, the four countries that play in the Rugby Championship, plus which two invited nations?
Japan
2 points
Question 8
In order to become a pharmacist in the UK, a person must pass the Common Registration Assessment which comprises of two parts covering what two areas necessary for the job?
Patient care and safety
2 points
Question 9
Per the International Bartenders Association, the tiki cocktail Zombie is made using what three types of rum, all named for places in the Caribbean?
*Demerara is an area of the Guianas that was previously run by the Dutch and then British, and now exists in present-day Guyana.
Golden Puerto Rican rum
Demerara rum
3 points
Question 10
Five of the last seven Academy Award for Best Picture winners have had single word titles. What are these films?
*The two winners with multi-word titles during this time are Everything Everywhere All at Once and One Battle After Another.
Nomadland
CODA
Oppenheimer
Anora
5 points
Round 2 points
(Maximum: 18)
Total points
(Maximum: 40)

Round 3
Question 1
What everyday task do approximately 2500 to 3000 people do at two minute intervals in Shibuya, Tokyo, during the city’s rush hour, video footage of which is often used in media productions to allude to human activity or urban population density?
*Believed to be the busiest road crossing in the world, the Shibuya crossing next to Shibuya Station is surrounded by large digital advertising screens, with its ‘dinosaur walking’ display in the film Lost in Translation being one of its many appearances on film. A live webcamera of the crossing can be watched via YouTube.
1 point
Question 2
What famous building at 175 Fifth Avenue in New York City is named for the fact that its shape resembles a particular household appliance?
1 point
Question 3
With a name that literally means ‘little goat’, although no goat is used in its creation, what type of food is the chivito, the national dish of Uruguay?
*Often with over a dozen ingredients, the chivito includes steak, bacon, ham, mozzarella, fried egg, olives, lettuce, tomato, mustard, and mayonnaise. The story behind the chivito’s name is said to be that an Argentinian arrived in Uruguay and asked for a goat sandwich, but due to not serving goat the Uruguay restaurant owner simply made a packed steak sandwich instead.
1 point
Question 4
What four-letter word is both a genre of music and the German word for radio?
*Deutschlandfunk is, contrary to what non-German speaking visitors may expect, not an upbeat music station but the nation’s foremost news and current affairs station.
1 point
Question 5
In which European city is Four Courts, which was occupied in 1922 by opponents to a peace treaty that agreed to the establishment of a free state rather than a full republic, and where subsequent fighting is said to have destroyed possibly 1000 years worth of records?
1 point
Question 6
Originally a mosque with connected madrasa until being converted into a formal university in 1963, al-Qarawiyyin is often labelled the oldest existing site of continuous higher learning in the world. In what African country is al-Qarawiyyin?
*Constructed in the mid-9th century, al-Qarawiyyin is over two hundred years older than the University of Bologna, the oldest still-operational university in the world.
1 point
Question 7
In March 1995, which two nations became involved in a conflict over fishing practices which came to be labelled as the Turbot War?
*In retaliation for EU vessels fishing in Canadian waters and overfishing just outside them, Canada pursued and seized the Spanish vessel Estai in international waters near Canada. In return, Spain deported several Canadians. When Canadian ships subsequently cut the nets of a Portuguese trawler, Spain deployed a patrol boat, which led to Canada giving permission for its navy to fire on Spanish vessels that wielded weapons. The Turbot War ended when the EU put pressure on Spain to withdraw from Canadian waters in exchange for a payment and release of the seized vessel.
Spain
2 points
Question 8
Although often still referred to as u-bends, for the invention made by Thomas Crapper, modern toilets and sinks use traps to stop odours returning into the room, including designs named for which three letters of the alphabet?
Q
S
3 points
Question 9
As well as the bar and the two collars used to keep the weights in place, Olympic weightlifting uses ten different denominations of plate weights. What are the two heaviest plate weights and two lightest plate weights that are used in Olympic competition?
*The weights are divided into five different colours, running in a heaviest-to-lightest sequence of red, blue, yellow, green, and white, repeated twice. The current men’s world record for a single lift in the 110kg+ clean and jerk category is 267kg, made by Georgian Lasha Talakhadze in 2021 – although Talakhadze’s previous suspension for using performance enhancing drugs has raised doubts about the authenticity of his results.
20kg
1kg
0.5kg
4 points
Question 10
Brought to public attention by the Ridley Scott film The Martian, in which a stranded astronaut uses it to communicate with NASA from the surface of Mars, the hexadecimal system uses two-digit combinations of the numbers 0-9 and letters A-F to create thousands of letters, numbers, and symbols using only 16 inputs. In order to create and decipher the combinations, users require an ASCII table, with ASCII standing for what five words?
Standard
Code
Information
Interchange
5 points
Round 3 points
(Maximum: 20)
Total points
(Maximum: 60)

Round 4
Question 1
Originally shown from 1976 to 1981, and subsequently revived on several occasions, what TV show was based back and front stage at the Benny Vandergast Memorial Theater?
1 point
Question 2
Introduced in 2018, available to approximately 500 million people, and with a budget of nearly $2bn a year, India’s Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojna – also known as Ayushyaman Bharat Yojana or PMJAY – is the world’s largest example of what type of government scheme?
1 point
Question 3
Using one character from each of the books’ titles – or two letters if written in Romaji or English – what two-character or four-letter term is used to collectively describe the Shinto holy books 古事記 (Kojiki) and 日本書紀 (Nihon Shoki)?
1 point
Question 4
Primarily settled after the 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers ended the Northwest Indian War, which US state was drawn up and recognised in 1803, only for a technical oversight to result in its constitution not being ratified until 1953 when the error was spotted by school history teachers during preparations for the state’s 150th anniversary?
*The failure to ratify the Ohio Constitution meant the state had not met the criteria of joining the United States, and therefore it had technically remained part of the Northwest Territory, an area primarily run by Native Americans and British forces until the Northwest Indian War. A retroactive date of March 1, 1803 was put on the constitution, allowing Ohio to still claim to be the 17th state rather than the 48th, as well as try to legally justify the 150 years of attending Congress and voting that had been done by Ohio representatives, plus the state’s place in the Electoral College.
1 point
Question 5
Noted as a serious obstacle in generating research and conservation within the field of botany, what two-word term is given to the cognitive bias within humans that makes them widely ignore plants as wildlife and instead concentrate more on animals?
*On a simple level, plant blindness is the failing to notice plants around us every day or within photographs. However, it also has a major influence on how humans impact and preserve wildlife: despite roughly six times more plants being listed on CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), it is estimated plant conservation receives only a third of the funding that goes to animal conservation.
1 point
Question 6
The song Piece of My Heart, later made famous by Big Brother and the Holding Company and its lead singer Janis Joplin, and covered by the likes of P.P. Arnold and Faith Hill, was originally a 1967 hit for the elder sister of which US singer?
*Erma Franklin’s version reached number 62 on the US chart, her highest chart success. Another of Aretha’s sisters, Carolyn, also worked in music, both as a singer and songwriter, occasionally writing for Aretha.
1 point
Question 7
On June 4, the UK’s Law Commission published its report on new funerary methods, having previously stated that the only three legally recognised funerary methods – burial, cremation, and burial at sea – were no longer sufficient. What two types of ‘new funerary method’ were specifically named within the report as becoming more broadly considered globally and worthy of legislative consideration?
*Alkaline hydrolysis is the use of a strong alkaline and water to reduce the body to a skeleton, which is then crushed using a cremulator to create ‘ashes’ – a sped-up version of the disintegration and break down that a body undertakes naturally. This process has been found to produce 1/7th of the CO2 that cremation does – although mourners travelling to funerals produces far more than both – while also aiding with the problem of full cemeteries (one estimate is that half of the UK’s graveyards will be full by 2040). The report suggests that a framework be built to permit new funerary methods that protects dignity, the environment, and public health and safety.
Human composting
2 points
Question 8
In the Chinese16th century epic Journey to the West, monk Tang Sanzang is joined by three disciples, Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, and Sha Wujing on an adventure that leads to various levels of enlightenment. As well as being divine beings, what three non-human creatures are Sun, Zhu, and Sha?
Pig
Sandman/troll
3 points
Question 9
What are the four most commonly used types of coffee bean?
Robusta
Liberica
Excelsa
4 points
Question 10
Excluding special temporary sections such as the current one reporting on the World Cup, what are the 12 sections of The Sunday Times newspaper, as currently defined by its website?
*The Magazines are The Sunday Times Magazine, Luxx Magazine, Style Magazine, and Culture Magazine.
World
Comment
Money
Life & Style
Business
Sport
Culture
Travel
Obituraies
Puzzles
Magazines
12 points
Round 4 points
(Maximum: 27)
Total points
(Maximum: 87)

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.
The following have all been world champion which sport?
Clue 1
Amanda Serrano
10 points
Clue 2
Jack McAuliffe
9 points
Clue 3
Claressa Shields
8 points
Clue 4
Jack Dempsey
7 points
Clue 5
Oleksandr Usyk
6 points
Clue 6
Roy Jones Jr.
5 points
Clue 7
George Foreman
4 points
Clue 8
Rocky Marciano
3 points
Clue 9
Mike Tyson
2 points
Clue 10
Muhammad Ali
1 point
