The Quiz Page
1. About which music group did the legendary Phil Spector remark “ The only difference between a pornographic movie and them is that the pornographic movie has better music”
The Spice Girls
2. In the film Mr. And Mrs. 55 Guru Dutt was a cartoonist. Who actually drew the cartoons?
Bal Thackeray
3. His wife said of him “he is frightened of the titles and degrees on peoples visiting cards” and his card reads ‘ senior shoe salesman’. Who?
Thomas J. Bata
4. It is called ‘deuce’ in English, ‘egalite’ in French. What is it in German?
Einstein
5. So sure were the distributors of the success of this film , that they split up the film into 20 minute segments for a kids morning show. Which film?
Star Wars
6. If you were engaged in an altercation with a friend and he gave you a ‘circum orbital Hemotopo’ what would you have?
A black eye.
7. What is referred to as ‘blue sky research’ ?
Spending enormous amounts of money on futile projects like finding out why the sky is blue etc.
8. What do psychologists define as ‘a disorder in which strongly felt ethical and altruistic impulses are perpetually warring with extreme sexual longing often of a perverse nature’ ?
Love
9. Locals affectionately refer to it as ‘bobby’. It is 90 ft long, has a sinuous body, tail, snake like head and a long neck. What?
The Loch Ness Monster.
10. According to legend Allah has 1001 names. To be good men, men need know only 1000 names. Who is the only one to know all 1001 names?
The Camel
11. What contribution did a vague movie by name ‘Rooplekha’ make to Indian cinema?
First movie with a flashback sequence.
12. The word ‘stadium’ comes from ‘stade’ a unit of distance. What was the unit?
The distance that Hercules could walk holding his breath.
13. In Asterix comic Unhygienix buys a plot of land from Obelix. How do we supposedly know this land today?
As Stonehenge.
14. Which day to day medical term is derived from the Latin for Cow?
Vaccination.
15. Based on Hamlet, it was the first English movie to be dubbed into Zulu and was also the first English movie not to feature a single human. Which movie?
The Lion King
16. It was believed that the devil was present at all important occasions during the medieval period. What practice arose from this?
The practice of clinking glasses to toast. They believed that the sound made was similar to church bells which scared the Devil away.
17. When King George first met him he asked him ‘Tell me , how did you pee’? Who are we talking about?
Sir Charles Lindbergh
18. She is a graduate of the National School of Drama . She replaced Mita Vashist in her most celebrated role to date. She is also starring in Kamal Hassan’s under-production film ‘Ladies Only’. Who
Seema Biswas.
19. What is common to hearty, Patiala, silent, cocktail, open heart, dancing and round?
All are types of laughter.
20. If you were playing with the Devil’s Book what would you be doing?
Playing cards.
21. In medieval times, in Europe, 1/3 of taxes went to the King, 1/3 to the nobility and 1/3 to the common man. How is this immortalised?
Through the nursery rhyme ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’
22. Born with the body of a mastiff, looks of a lamb, teeth of a bunny rabbit and is one of those mutations that happen when God plays dice. Who or What are we talking about?
Ronaldo
23. Following the demolition of the Babri Masjid, there were many debates in Parliament regarding what to be done with the disputed land. One of the most popular suggestions came from a first time M.P. from Uttar Pradesh who suggested that a sweet shop be built there. What was his logic?
Rama+Babri=Rabri which was a sweetmeat.
24. This bird has the unique distinction of being called by the names of two different countries in different parts of the world. Give both names.
Turkey and Peru in Latin America.
25. “There was neither non-exist nor exist. There was neither the realm of space nor the sky beyond”. Opening lines of what?
The Rig Veda.
26. In February 1935, the superpolyamide formed from hexamethylene diamine and adipic acid was made by Du Pont. How do we know this compound better?
As Nylon
27. This person wrote about himself thus :"Principal virtues : keeps his nails clean. Principal faults : that he has no family, is bad tempered and has a poor digestion. One and only wish : Not to be buried alive. Greatest sin : that he does not worship Mammon. Important events in his life : None". Who?
Alfred Nobel
28. There's a story that, around 1600, two children were playing with lenses in a shop in Middleburg. What resulted, according to the story, from the game?
The telescope. They were playing in Hans Lippershey's
shop. Lippershey is considered to be the probable inventor of the telescope.
By holding together the two lenses, the children found, they could magnify
the objects kept in the shop. This led Lippershey to construct the telescope.
29. What was patented by Hippolyte Mege Mouries in 1869, after he was commissioned by the Victualing Department of the French Navy to find an alternative for butter at a time of acute butter shortage?
Margarine
30. They began to appear in quantities in the 1860s. "I hate those redbreasts", cried "Punch" in 1869. In 1877 "The Times" magazine declared them a great social evil, and it was following difficulties with them in 1879 that the London Post Office in 1880 cried out "Post Early". What are we talking about?
Christmas Cards
31. His first voyage, in 1607, was intended to find a quick way to China by way of the North Pole, but resulted instead in the establishment of the Spitzbergen whale fisheries. In 1608, in the service of the Dutch East India Company, he sailed 150 miles past the site of New York, but returned back. In 1610, he explored the site that is now known by his name and was frozen in it. Who?
Henry Hudson, of Hudson Bay
32. A man by name Friedrich Froebel, walking with two of his disciples over the Steiger Pass on the way to the village of Blankenburg, scratched his head for the right name to give the institution, and then suddenly shouted out "Eureka ! I have it ! It shall be called _______________!". Fill in the blank.
Kindergarten. Froebel, the German educational reformer was the inventor of the Kindergarden system of education.
33. Back in 1890, Johnson & Johnson put together the first of its kind in response to a plea from railroad workers who needed treatment on the scene as they toiled to lay tracks across America. What?
First Aid kits
34. To the Hopi Indians, who feared it and filled it with frightening myths, it was the trail made by the God Ta-Vwoats when he took a mourning chief to find his wife in the other world; the river associated with it, according to them was an addition to hold back the unworthy. What?
The Grand Canyon and the River Colorado.
35. An author, as a sign of gratitude to the nurse who had cared for his firstborn child, gave a script and asked her to sell it when she was in need of money. Years later, when the nurse was really in want of money, she sold it and lived in comfort for the rest of her life. The manuscript was the first part of a famous work of this author Name the book and author?
Rudyard Kipling and the Jungle Book
36. Though Magellan is regarded as the first person to circumnavigate the world, technically he was not, and it was a person by name Juan Sebastian del Cano, who is technically the first circumnavigator. Why ?
Magellan, while on the expedition, was killed in a squabble with the natives in the Philippines, and it was Cano who assumed command of the expedition and sailed the expedition through the rest of its journey
37. In the United States, currently a small stock of this exists at only one location - at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. Some additional stocks are available in Great Britain, Russia and China. Stocks of what ?
The Small pox virus
38. Masaru Ibuka, after graduating in engineering, failed the entry examination for lifetime employment at Toshiba, and decided to start his own small business. He was fortunate to find a partner who had a flair for finance and salesmanship. Who was this partner ?
Akio Morita. They together started the company
that later became Sony.
© 1998 Gopal Srinivasan <mailgops@iname.com>