Trivia Questions, given in Churchill MCR, FreeBSD benefit, Nov 12 2009.

by Joseph Bonneau

[numbers in brackets indicate number of correct responses received out of 4 teams]

ROUND 1: Which came first?

1) rubber bands 1845, ring binder 1886, thumbtack 1888/1900, paperclips 1880's [1]

2) Haiti 1804, Belgium 1830, Liberia 1847, Philippines 1937 [2]

3) Khan 1162, Polo 1254, Wallace 1272, Chaucer 1343 [3]

4) Bayer 1863, Coca-Cola 1886-1892, IBM, 1896/1911, Toyota 1926/1937 [2]

5) The Communist Manifesto 1848, On the Origin of the Species 1859, Les Miserables 1862, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 1865 [0]

6) Winter Olympics 1924, World Cup 1930, Masters 1934, NCAA 1939 [0]

ROUND 2: Resources

1) Madagascar [4]

2) Bolivia [3]

3) phosphate (used in fertilizers) [2]

4) Canada (Australia is a close second) [0]

5) Brazil (Amazon river is 20% of the world's river flow) [1]

6) former Soviet Union (between -0.5% and -1%, low birth rate, greatly increased rates of accidental death, and lower health care have caused population loss. EU is close to neutral overall, others positive) [3]

ROUND 3: Dictionaries

1) tremendous, hazardous, stupendous, horrendous [1]

2) month, pint [0]

3) crunk [3]

4) qwerty [4]

5) set [0]

6) king [1]

ROUND 4: Mascots

1) Leopard [1]

2) Iron Maiden [3]

3) McDonald's (mascot changed in the 1960's to Ronald McDonald) [1]

4) Eagle [2]

5) Michelin tire man [3]

6) Daemon [3]

Round 5: Countries that kick ass in sports

1) Hungary [2]

2) Brazil [4]

3) Norway [3]

4) Japan [1]

5) South Korea [2]

6) USA (Native American game, although it is Canada's national sport) [2]

ROUND 6: Families

1) UK, Germany, Russia (King George V of England, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, and Tsar Nicolas II of Russia. Wilhelm/George first cousins through Queen Victoria, George/Nicolas first cousins through Christian IX of Denmark, Wilhelm/Nicolas third cousins) [3]

2) Radium (family also known as the Alkali Earth metals) [2]

3) Bernoulli (Jakob probability, Daniel fluid flow plus many others) [4]

4) wolverine (also has Latin name gulo gulo-glutton, weight up to 30 kg) [1]

5) polyandry [3]

6) Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, who respectively wrote Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Agnes Grey) [4]

Round 7: Place Name Origins

1) Venezuela (named after Venice) [4]

2) Tripoli, Libya ("Three Cities" in Greek) [3]

3) Maldives [1]

4) San Francisco (1849 California Gold Rush) [3]

5) Yemen (not Sudan which means "land of the blacks") [1]

6) Cambridge [4]

ROUND 8: Miscellaneous crap that didn't fit in anywhere. Need a better round theme.

1) Archimedes paradox [4]

2) Aldous Huxley (writer of Brave New World) [3]

3) Dadaism [2]

4) Blue (contains copper which oxidizes blue) [1]

5) Twin paradox, Twin effect [4]

6) Gobi desert (high-altitude makes it extremely cold and preserves fossils well) [3]

TIEBREAKER: August 1, 1970 [Best response: 1932]

Difficulty breakdown:
      5 0
     11 1
      9 2
     14 3
      9 4