Trivia Quiz

1. Which is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea?
a) Majorca
b) Corsica
c) Sardinia
d) Sicily

2. Which class of battleships were built for the British navy after 1905 and were far superior in speed and armaments to anything then afloat?
a) Juggernaut
b) Corvette
c) Dreadnought
d) Hermes

3. What started the Peasant's Revolt in England in June 1381, the same cause of the protests and demonstrations in 1990?
a) Poll tax
b) Window tax
c) Tithes
d) Road tolls

5. Which city, called Edo until 1868, is the capital of Japan?
a) Tokyo
b) Kyoto
c) Kawasaki
d) Beijing

7. What are the districts north of Azad, Kashmir which are directly administered by Pakistan but not merged with it?
a) Northern Areas
b) Mardan
c) Kishtwar
d) Rann of Kachchh

8. What does a player use to hit the white balls in a game of billiards or snooker?
a) Paddle
b) Rest
c) Bat
d) Cue

9. In the Napoleonic Wars, what disastrous surprise attack on Napoleon Bonaparte by a joint Prussian and Russian army under Count Wittgenstein took place 2 May 1813?
a) Battle of Kunersdorf
b) Battle of Lützen
c) Battle of Lake Balaton
d) Battle of Issus

10. Which country separates Alaska from the other mainland states of the USA?
a) Mexico
b) Russia
c) Cuba
d) Canada

11. Who wrote the words `Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.`?
a) Henry Fielding
b) Frank Richards
c) Charles Dickens
d) The Duke of Wellington

12. Who wrote the words `Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme.`?
a) Thomas of Erceldoune
b) James Hogg
c) Ben Jonson
d) William Shakespeare

13. In which sport do you stand on a keeled board to ride the waves?
a) Ski boarding
b) Surfing
c) Aqua-planing
d) Water skiing

14. Which is Italy's longest river?
a) Adige
b) Po
c) Trebbia
d) Tiber

15. Who was the legendary wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, England?
a) Maud
b) Maid Marion
c) Guinevere
d) Lady Godiva

16. Who wrote the words `And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine, `I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the wine.``?
a) Lewis Carroll
b) Michael Flanders
c) G K Chesterton
d) Edward Lear

18. Who said `We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.`?
a) Thomas Babington Macaulay
b) Conor Cruise O'Brien
c) Daniel O'Connell
d) Feargus O'Connor

21. What is the name for a verbose way of speaking or writing, which appears impressive but is perhaps deliberately unclear, and may be used to disguise the truth?
a) Euphemism
b) Deflection
c) Circumlocution
d) Convolution

22. Because it is 5,280 feet, exactly one mile above sea level, which city, the capital of Colorado, is nicknamed the Mile High City?
a) Kansas City
b) Denver
c) Aspen
d) Santa Fe

23. Which country's flag has fifty stars representing the current fifty states, and 13 stripes, representing the thirteen original states?
a) Turkey
b) China
c) Australia
d) USA

24. What is the source of a word or expression called?
a) Differentiation
b) Glossology
c) Derivation
d) Nomenclature

25. What is the collective term for the Spanish, Romanian, Portuguese, Italian, and French languages?
a) Indo-European languages
b) Franco-European languages
c) Romance languages
d) Latin languages

26. Who wrote the words `Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky. Ring out the old, ring in the new.`?
a) Alfred, Lord Tennyson
b) Victor Hugo
c) John Betjeman
d) Robert Frost

27. What is the name of the market town and port, and the bay on which it stands, in the far northwestern Irish county which also has the same name.
a) Galway
b) Fife
c) Stranraer
d) Donegal

29. What French brandy is distilled from apple cider, and named after the département in northwestern France where it is produced?
a) Cognac
b) Calvados
c) Cassis
d) Kirsch

30. Which winter resort town of southern France hosted the Winter Olympic Games of 1992?
a) Igls
b) St Moritz
c) Grenoble
d) Albertville

31. Which British prime minister was largely responsible for the seizure of the Danish fleet during the Napoleonic Wars?
a) Spencer Perceval
b) Earl Grey
c) George Canning
d) Duke of Wellington

32. Who said `I have nothing to declare except my genius.`?
a) Oscar Wilde
b) Andy Warhol
c) Noël Coward
d) John Lennon

33. What is the generic word for the rules combining words into phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs?
a) Figures of speech
b) Punctuation
c) Parts of speech
d) Grammar

34. Which Asian country with an area over six times that of the United Kingdom only has a population of 2.3 million people?
a) Mongolia
b) Cambodia
c) Vietnam
d) Malaysia

35. Who wrote the words `One should never put on one's best trousers to go out to battle for freedom and truth.`?
a) P G Wodehouse
b) George Bernard Shaw
c) Oscar Wilde
d) Henrik Ibsen

36. Which area of Los Angeles is known as the home of the Hollywood stars?
a) Beverly Hills
b) Santa Barbara
c) Golden Gate
d) Key West

37. At what village near Richmond in North Yorkshire, England, is there a large military camp?
a) Brize Norton
b) Catterick
c) Ravensworth
d) Scargill

38. Who wrote the words `Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green.`?
a) R S Thomas
b) Laurie Lee
c) Dylan Thomas
d) Thomas Hood

39. On the shores of which of the Great Lakes does the city of Chicago stand?
a) Lake Michigan
b) Lake Erie
c) Lake Huron
d) Lake Ontario

40. Who wrote the words `If everybody minded their own business, ... the world would go round a deal faster than it does.`?
a) Jane Austen
b) Lewis Carroll
c) George Meredith
d) Jerome K Jerome

41. Maryland, a state of the USA was named after Henrietta Maria, wife of which English king?
a) James I
b) Charles II
c) Charles I
d) George II

42. Who wrote the words `She sat like patience on a monument, Smiling at grief.`?
a) Sir Walter Scott
b) William Shakespeare
c) John Milton
d) Percy Bysshe Shelley

43. What is the capital of Iraq?
a) Kirkuk
b) Baghdad
c) Basra
d) Mosul

44. Through which range of mountains did writer Robert Louis Stevenson travel with a donkey?
a) Cevennes
b) Urals
c) Dolomites
d) Alps

46. Which of the following is a novel by Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, published 1866?
a) Fathers and Sons
b) Crime and Punishment
c) Germinal
d) Nana