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1. Which Asian city hosted the 1988 Olympic Games?
a) Kuala Lumpur
b) Delhi
c) Bangkok
d) Seoul
2. Which British colony has a key and a castle on its flag?
a) Gibraltar
b) Pitcairn
c) Bermuda
d) Falkland Islands
3. With which types of stories do you associate the names Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm?
a) Greek myths
b) Fairy tales
c) Bible stories
d) Mystery plays
4. Who wrote the words `Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognises genius.`?
a) Arthur Conan Doyle
b) Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
c) Pablo Picasso
d) Benjamin Disraeli
5. Which locality, once a town, is part of the London borough of Enfield?
a) Barnet
b) Westminster
c) Wimbledon
d) Edmonton
6. Which of the following is a lake in the northern Everglades, Florida, USA?
a) Cumberland
b) Marion
c) Okeechobee
d) Moultrie
7. Near which city is the Taj Mahal?
a) Calcutta
b) Mecca
c) Agra
d) Bombay
8. Sir Ernest Shackleton was a famous explorer principally associated with which region of the world?
a) South America
b) Far East
c) Africa
d) Antarctic
9. What river in the Republic of Ireland flows from the Wicklow Mountains to Dublin Bay, and has a length of 80 km/50 mi?
a) Liffey
b) Usk
c) Lune
d) Great Ouse
10. Who painted a famous picture of the Spanish town of Guernica, devastated by bombing during the Spanish Civil War?
a) Pablo Picasso
b) Francisco Goya
c) Salvador Dali
d) Rembrandt
11. Who said `It's a naïve domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.`?
a) Noël Coward
b) Keith Floyd
c) Clement Freud
d) James Thurber
12. Who said `A man who does not lose his reason over certain things has none to lose.`?
a) William Wilberforce
b) Richard Burton
c) Gotthold Lessing
d) Doris Lessing
13. Who wrote the words `Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.`?
a) George Eliot
b) Tony Blair
c) Ramsay MacDonald
d) Winston Churchill
14. Which river includes on its course the Kariba Dam and the Victoria Falls?
a) Mississippi
b) Orinoco
c) Amazon
d) Zambezi
15. Which British order of chivalry was founded 1902 by Edward VII?
a) George Cross
b) Order of Merit
c) Victoria Cross
d) Order of Distinction
16. What is the name for a member of the largest ethnic group in northern India, numbering about 11 million?
a) Sikh
b) Jat
c) Jain
d) Kikuyu
17. In grammar, what is a word that specifies the referent of a noun phrase?
a) Metonym
b) Determiner
c) Collocation
d) Modifier
18. What is the alternate name of Lake Turkana, a lake of northwestern Kenya in the Great Rift Valley?
a) Lake Donner
b) Lake Cupid
c) Lake Vixen
d) Lake Rudolf
19. What is the name of the Mediterranean coast from Menton to St Tropez, France, which is renowned for its beaches?
a) Costa Brava
b) Côte d'Azur
c) Costa del Sol
d) Costa Blanca
20. What name was given to German submarines during the world wars?
a) Unterseeboot
b) USB
c) U-boat
d) Submersible
21. What is the pseudonym of David John Cornwell, author of Smiley's People?
a) John Le Carré
b) John Fowles
c) Raymond Chandler
d) Dashiell Hammett
22. Robert Browning was an English poet who wrote which one of the following four poems?
a) `The Owl and the Pussy-cat`
b) `The Pied Piper of Hamelin`
c) `Jabberwocky`
d) `The Spider and the Fly`
23. Which well-known railway system connects the east and west coasts of Canada?
a) Canadian-Pacific railway
b) Montreal railway
c) Vancouver railway
d) Trans-Canada railway
24. What term describes the frozen treeless plains of the Arctic?
a) Mesa
b) Steppes
c) Tundra
d) Permafrost
25. `Mad Dogs and Englishmen` was one of his best known songs. What was his name?
a) Leonard Bernstein
b) Stephen Sondheim
c) George Gershwin
d) Noël Coward
26. In which capital city could you visit the Bolshoi Theatre?
a) Prague
b) Belgrade
c) Vienna
d) Moscow
27. Of which African country is Niamey the capital?
a) Gabon
b) Gambia
c) Niger
d) Chad
28. In which of the Low Countries is the region of Flanders?
a) Netherlands
b) Luxembourg
c) Monaco
d) Belgium
29. Who wrote the words `In the middle of the road of our life.`?
a) David Owen
b) Dante Alighieri
c) Benito Mussolini
d) David Lloyd George
30. The Zambezi and which other river define the borders of Matabeleland?
a) Zaïre
b) Cubango
c) Limpopo
d) Kasai
31. Which punctuation mark is used after orders, emphatic greetings, and interjections as a means of emphasis?
a) Apostrophe
b) Exclamation mark
c) Question mark
d) Quotation marks
32. What is another name for Banaba, an island belonging to Kiribati?
a) Wake Island
b) Norfolk Island
c) Gilbert Island
d) Ocean Island
33. In which battle, fought 1 July 1690 in eastern Ireland, was the exiled king James II defeated by William III?
a) Battle of Bladensburg
b) Battle of Bougainville
c) Battle of Bosworth
d) Battle of the Boyne
34. In which naval battle did Admiral Horatio Nelson defeat Napoleon Bonaparte's fleet in 1798?
a) The Battle of Britain
b) The Battle of Hastings
c) The Battle of the Nile
d) The Battle of Waterloo
35. Who wrote the words `Sleep is sweet to the labouring man.`?
a) W H Davies
b) Stephen Spender
c) John Bunyan
d) D H Lawrence
36. Who was Old Possum, who wrote a book of poetry called Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats?
a) T S Eliot
b) J R R Tolkien
c) J R Hartley
d) D H Lawrence
37. Who wrote the words `April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire.`?
a) Sylvia Plath
b) T S Eliot
c) Stevie Smith
d) W H Auden
38. Who wrote The Book of Nonsense?
a) Ogden Nash
b) Hilaire Belloc
c) Edward Lear
d) Lewis Carroll
39. Which English author wrote Pilgrim's Progress whilst imprisoned in Bedford Jail?
a) Jules Verne
b) John Milton
c) Thomas Hardy
d) John Bunyan
40. Who was the Mongol ruler who conquered Persia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia in the 14th century?
a) Genghis Khan
b) Kublai Khan
c) Tamerlane
d) Ogoden Khan
41. In the UK, what former place of detention for offenders aged 15-21 was first introduced 1908?
a) Strangeways
b) Borstal
c) Holloway
d) Parkhurst
42. What is the term for the campaign for land reform publicized by English writer G K Chesterton in 1925?
a) Distributism
b) Dissemination
c) Scatterment
d) Dissolution
43. Which indoor game is played with 22 balls?
a) Snooker
b) Tenpin bowling
c) Table tennis
d) Billiards
44. What was the name commonly given to elite troops of continental armies in World War I?
a) Iron Division
b) International Brigade
c) Special Brigade
d) Iron Brigade
45. Which Australian state has Hobart as its capital?
a) New South Wales
b) Queensland
c) Victoria
d) Tasmania
46. Tonga, a country of 169 islands in the South Pacific, has another popular name. What is it?
a) The Friendly Islands
b) The Land of Giants
c) The Sandwich Islands
d) Sunrise Islands
47. In which city can you see the Brandenburg Gate?
a) Strasbourg
b) Berlin
c) Los Angeles
d) Vienna
48. What was the first name shared by Lord Kitchener and Lord Nelson?
a) Titus
b) Horatio
c) Charles
d) Percy
49. Which city was host to the 1972 Winter Olympics?
a) Grenoble
b) Sarajevo
c) Innsbruck
d) Sapporo
50. Which Act of parliament granted emergency powers to the British government Aug 1914?
a) Reform Act
b) Navigation Act
c) Enclosure Act
d) Defence of the Realm Act
There are 50 questions, you have one minute to answer each one.