Can YOU answer questions that made Scots team the world quiz champions?
As Scottish team wins Quizzing World Cup Final...
THEY are the kind of questions which would surely result in dismissal for your average pub quiz-master. Fiendishly obscure and often rooted in times or places most of us know precious little about, they would first elicit blank looks and later, a growing sense of impatience.
How many pub teams, for example, have a resident expert on Sumo wrestling, Kyrgyzstan lakes or Russian fur hats?
But when you are competing in the Quizzing World Cup Final, as Scotland was on Sunday against the USA, the difficulty of the questions reflects the prestige of the event.
And, galling though it may be for amateur quizzers to consider, few of the questions reproduced below presented the teams with any major problems.
The contest, played out on Zoom and broadcast on YouTube, went down to the wire. With the teams locked at 43-43 after normal time, the final went to the quizzing version of a penalty shoot-out.
Ultimately, on the sixth sudden death question, Scotland scored the winner – ironic ally, on a question about an American philosopher.
The Scotland A team was bolstered by the encyclopaedic knowledge of one of Britain’s best-known quizzers – Anne Hegarty, who appears on the ITV show The Chase – but she was quick to point out she was not the team’s star player.
Hegarty was born in England but qualified for the Scottish team because her mother’s family is Scottish.
She told her opponents, The Zoomtown Rats, at the start of the contest: ‘ I’m a chaser on the UK Chase and The Chase Australia and I’m not even the strongest player on this team, so be very afraid.’
Her knowledge of Hindu religious symbolism certainly was terrifying.
But no less impressive in their command of arcane facts were her team mates, captain Andrew Frazer, Ailsa Watson – a previous series winner of Channel 4 TV show Fifteen to One – David Harris and Iain Thoms, who correctly answered that all-important sudden death question.
So how would you do in a quizzing World Cup Final?
Limber up for possibly the hardest questions you have ever encountered in a national newspaper quiz.
But keep your eyes open for the occasional gift. Fans of 1980s pop music, 1970s horror films, users of social media or those with some knowledge of art may find the occasional safe haven.
As for the rest, why not guess? The Scotland team did – several times–and they won the World Cup.
GEOGRAPHY
1 On which mountain on the island of Iwo Jima did American troops raise the stars and stripes flag in February 1945?
2 The spectacular Iguazu falls, 82 metres high and 2.7 km wide are located within the national parks of which two countries?
3 Which lake in Kyrgyzstan, one of the world’s largest and deepest, is located in the Tian Shan mountains?
AMERICAN HISTORY
4 The administration of which American president was rocked by the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s?
5 The proposals that eventually became the 19th Amendment, giving women in the USA the vote, were nicknamed after which American civil rights campaigner and associate of Elizabeth Stanton?
THE ARTS
6 Jeanne Hébuterne was the common law wife and artistic muse of which Italian painter?
7 Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition was dedicated to which architect and artist whose work inspired his music?
8 Which winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature won a Pulitzer in 1988 for her novel Beloved?
9 The name of which food dish is the title of a 1929 painting by Edward Hopper?
10 The inscription on the reverse of the Pritzker Prize medallion – firmitas, utilitas, venustas – is inspired by which ancient Roman architect?
POPULAR CULTURE
11 Edie Sedgwick was a muse – and became one of the 1960s’ superstars – of which 20th century artist?
12 ‘The power of Christ compels you’ is a line often quoted from which 1973 horror film?
13 Bear, Jock, Otter and Geek are some of the ‘tribes’ that users can identify as on which worldwide social networking and online dating app launched in 2009?
14 Which Australian hard rock band scored a billboard number 1 album in November 2020 with Power Up 39 years after For Those About to Rock We Salute You topped the US charts?
15 What is the name of the alien that serves as the mascot of Reddit?
16 Hip hop pioneer Fab Five Freddy features in the lyrics and the video for which 1981 Blondie hit?
RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM
17 According to legend, the female of which bird will, i n times of famine, wound herself, striking her breast with the beak to feed her young with her blood to prevent starvation? As a result, the bird has come to symbolise the Passion of Jesus.
18 Shiva Hindu temples often contain which phallic object to symbolise the fire from which Lord Shiva emerged to claim superiority over Brahma and Vishnu?
MEDICINE
19 The 2020 Nobel Prize for medicine was awarded to Harvey Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles Rice for their discovery of which virus?
20 Which adjective means ‘relating to an illness caused by medical examination or treatment’?
21 The hyoid bone in the human neck takes i ts name from the shape of which lower case letter in the Greek alphabet?
POT LUCK
22 What name is given to a Russian fur hat with ear flaps often worn by Russian soldiers?
23 Asashoryu Akinori was the first wrestler from which country to reach yokozuna, Sumo’s highest rank?
24 One of the main ingredients of Chinese five spice powder, what is the common two-word name of the spice partly named for the shape of its pod?
SUDDEN DEATH QUESTION
25 Which American theorist is best known for her 1990 work Gender Trouble which has had a major influence on the development of queer theory?
Well, how did you do? Did you get ANY right? If so, hold your head up high.
If not, shake it from side to side at the sum of useless knowledge some people carry around.