Trivia Quiz

1. Which German concentration camp was situated near Lublin, Poland?
a) Auschwitz
b) Maidanek
c) Dachau
d) Belsen

2. Which Australian city has a cricket ground called the Oval?
a) Melbourne
b) Adelaide
c) Perth
d) Sydney

5. On the sports field, what is 260 cm/8 ft 5in for men and 230 cm/7ft 5 in for women?
a) Hammer
b) Javelin
c) High jump world record
d) Pole vault pole

6. What is the small town in Buckinghamshire, England, where every Shrove Tuesday local women run a pancake race?
a) Royston
b) Olney
c) Hitchin
d) Frome

7. Which of the following words means an indirect, unpleasant comment?
a) Criticism
b) Innuendo
c) Contempt
d) Scorn

8. Who said `To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.`?
a) George Orwell
b) Margaret Thatcher
c) George Bernard Shaw
d) Mr Magoo

9. Who came to prominence when he overthrew the dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959?
a) Idi Amin
b) Fidel Castro
c) Colonel Gaddafi
d) Gamal Nasser

10. Which country is divided in two by the Bosporus, with Istanbul its old capital in Europe, and Ankara its present capital in Asia?
a) Israel
b) Greece
c) Turkey
d) Ethiopia

11. On the banks of which river is Edinburgh situated?
a) Dee
b) Clyde
c) Forth
d) Tay

12. What area of Yukon, Canada, is named after a river and was once famous for gold mining?
a) Klondike
b) White Horse
c) Dawson
d) Yellow Knife

13. Which small atoll in the Marshall Islands has given its name to a diminutive type of swimwear?
a) Rongelap Atoll
b) Bikini Atoll
c) Boxer Island
d) Taka Atoll

14. What was the maiden name of the Princess of Wales?
a) Sadler
b) Scott
c) Sanderson
d) Spencer

15. During the Anglo-American War of 1812, what inconclusive engagement between British and American forces took place in the vicinity of Detroit 5 May 1813?
a) Battle of Bladensburg
b) Battle of Beresina
c) Battle of Burlington Heights
d) Battle of Bougainville

16. Which famous bridge now stands in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, USA?
a) London Bridge
b) Hammersmith Bridge
c) Tower Bridge
d) Humber Bridge

17. What is the tenth letter of the English alphabet?
a) I
b) K
c) L
d) J

18. In which ocean was the island setting of Lord of the Flies?
a) Atlantic
b) Pacific
c) Indian
d) Arctic

19. Who said `One more drink and I'd have been under the host.`?
a) Julian Clary
b) Dorothy Parker
c) Quentin Crisp
d) Marilyn Monroe

20. Which French writer became the subject of a play by Rostand, which made allusions to his extremely long nose?
a) Pinocchio
b) Cyrano de Bergerac
c) D'Artagnan
d) Gérard Depardieu

21. Name the area of Spanish coast which includes the holiday resort of Benidorm.
a) Costa Brava
b) Costa Dorada
c) Costa Blanca
d) Costa del Sol

22. Which small naval vessel is used for locating and destroying mines at sea?
a) Dreadnought
b) Flag ship
c) Minesweeper
d) Fire ship

23. In which English county are the holiday destinations Torquay, Paignton, Brixham, and Teignmouth?
a) Lancashire
b) Isle of Wight
c) West Sussex
d) Devon

24. What is the name of the notorious penal colony which lies off French Guiana?
a) Wormwood Scrubs
b) Alcatraz
c) Devil's Island
d) Robben Island

25. What eastern extremity of Australia, in New South Wales, lies just South of the border with Queensland?
a) Cape Adieu
b) Cape Byron
c) Cape Catastrophe
d) Cape Jaffa

26. Who said `No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.`?
a) Samuel Johnson
b) Anthony Trollope
c) Alexander Pope
d) P G Wodehouse

27. Who was the author of the book Les Misérables?
a) Victor Hugo
b) Emile Zola
c) Honoré de Balzac
d) Stendhal

28. Which is the only country of South America whose official language is not Spanish?
a) Uruguay
b) Brazil
c) Argentina
d) Colombia

29. Who said `The goal was scored a little bit by the hand of God, another bit by the head of Maradona.`?
a) Jimmy Hill
b) Diego Maradona
c) David Coleman
d) Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri

30. What is the term for the use of statistics to measure and quantify the salient elements of an economy?
a) Cliometrics
b) Parametrics
c) Correlations
d) Analysis of variance

31. In which American city will you find the Hale Observatories and the Mount Palomar telescope?
a) Raleigh
b) Cincinnati
c) Des Moines
d) Pasadena

32. Which is the smallest and most densely populated of the countries of Central America?
a) El Salvador
b) Guatemala
c) Costa Rica
d) Panama

33. What is the name of the ancient route in central Asia on the border of Kazakhstan and Xinjiang Uygur region of China, 470 km/290 mi Northwest of Urumqi?
a) Ussuri River border
b) Wulian Feng
c) Dzungarian Gates
d) Great Wall

34. What term describes countries in which the Portuguese language is spoken, or which were formerly ruled by Portugal?
a) Lisbophone
b) Portophone
c) Huelophone
d) Lusophone

35. In which Dublin college can the illuminated book of the Gospels, the Book of Kells, be seen?
a) King's College
b) Trinity College
c) Queen's College
d) Jesus College

36. What alliance of political parties in India was formed 1971 to oppose Indira Gandhi's Congress Party?
a) Frelimo
b) Renamo
c) Janata
d) Camorra

37. Who wrote the words `Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind?`?
a) Robert Burns
b) Ossian
c) Sir Walter Scott
d) Sir Harry Lauder

38. Which tear gas was used by all sides during World War I?
a) Lewisite
b) Strontium-90
c) Cyanogen bromide
d) Agent Orange

39. The Great Barrier Reef is a Marine National Park off the coast of which Australian state?
a) Tasmania
b) Victoria
c) Queensland
d) New South Wales

40. Which is the largest island in the West Indies?
a) Jamaica
b) Barbados
c) Cuba
d) Trinidad

41. What is the capital of Slovenia?
a) Koper
b) Maribor
c) Kranj
d) Ljubljana

42. What flows from the Black Forest to the Black Sea and is the second-longest river in Europe?
a) The Volga
b) The Danube
c) The Rhine
d) The Loire

43. Which Scottish city is the administrative headquarters of the Grampian region?
a) Dundee
b) Glenrothes
c) Glasgow
d) Aberdeen

44. Who wrote the words `Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!`?
a) William Wordsworth
b) Percy Bysshe Shelley
c) John Keats
d) Emily Dickinson

45. Who wrote the words `He is a very valiant trencher-man.`?
a) Jerome K Jerome
b) William Shakespeare
c) John Gay
d) G K Chesterton

46. Which was the home planet for the aliens in H G Wells' War of the Worlds?
a) Venus
b) Saturn
c) Mars
d) Mercury

47. What river rises in Angola and forms the frontier with Zaire before entering Zaire and joining the Zaïre River, of which it is the chief tributary?
a) Paraná
b) Jhelum
c) Kaxgar He
d) Kasai

49. Who said `The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.`?
a) George Meredith
b) W Somerset Maugham
c) Samuel Johnson
d) Anthony Trollope

50. What port in India, 250 km/155 mi South of Madras, lies at the mouth of the right branch of the Cauvery delta?
a) Pune
b) Calcutta
c) Bombay
d) Karaikal