The General Knowledge Quiz Book

386 Pages·2009·1.99 MB·English

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This edition published in 2007 by Arcturus Publishing Limited
26/27 Bickels Yard, 151–153 Bermondsey Street,
London SE1 3HA

Copyright © 2007 Arcturus Publishing Limited
Revisions by 2007 Puzzle Press Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without written permission in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person or persons who do
any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

ISBN: 978-1-84193-834-9

Printed in China

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Introduction

During the course of our lives, countless snippets of

information are stored in the brain: some useful,

others merely of interest.

This collection of quizzes tests your knowledge of

the world and beyond.

Each round contains ten questions – and you may

be astounded at just what you have picked up over

the years!

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Quiz 1

ANSWERS:
1 Cook Strait, 2 Venice, 3 Jim Carrey, 4 Michael Campbell, 5 Africa, 6 Gene
Loves Jezebel, 7 Taxidermy, 8 Goya, 9 Jupiter, 10 Toby.

1 Which strait separates the North and South islands of
New Zealand?

2 In which city is the Doge’s Palace?

3 Who plays Johnny Depp’s uncle in the 1993 film
Arizona Dream?

4 Which New Zealand golfer won the 2000 Australian
Masters in Melbourne?

5 Which continent has the larger land mass: Africa or
North America?

6 Aston, Aston, Rizzo, Stevenson, Gilvear: which 1980s
group?

7 What name is given to the art of preparing, stuffing
and mounting the skins of animals to make lifelike
models?

8 Which artist was appointed court painter to Charles IV
of Spain in 1786?

9 The name of which Roman god means ‘shining father'
in Latin?

10 What is the name of the dog in Punch and Judy
shows?

Quiz 2

ANSWERS:
1 Lurch, 2 Absolute zero, 3 Water polo, 4 Opus Dei, 5 Spike Lee,
6 Renaissance, 7 Rene Russo, 8 Michael Mann, 9 French Guiana, 10 1993.

1 What was the name of the Addams Family butler?

2 Which theoretical temperature corresponds to minus
273.1 degrees on the Celsius scale?

3 Which seven-a-side ball game is played in a
swimming pool?

4 Which Roman Catholic organization takes its name
from the Latin for ‘God’s work’?

5 Bamboozled is a film by which controversial US
director?

6 Which word meaning ‘rebirth’ describes the period in
European history which began in the 1th century?

7 Who starred opposite Pierce Brosnan in the remake of
The Thomas Crown Affair?

8 Who directed the 1995 film Heat, which starred Al
Pacino?

9 Of which French overseas region in South America is
Cayenne the capital?

10 In which year did David Koresh and the Branch
Davidians Christian cult hold a siege in Waco, Texas?

6

Quiz 3

ANSWERS:
1 Meat Loaf, 2 Space Cowboys, 3 Saturn, 4 Betty Grable, 5 15, 6 Biscuit,
7 Colleen McCullough, 8 Jack London, 9 Chickenpox, 10 Aquarius.

1 Which rock star was born Marvin Lee Aday?

2 Which 2000 film starred veteran actors Clint
Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and
James Garner?

3 Of which planet is Phoebe a satellite?

4 Which film actress and wartime pin-up girl married
bandleader Harry James in 193?

5 How many counters has each player in a game of
backgammon?

6 Which food item takes its name from the French for
‘twice cooked’?

7 Who wrote The Thorn Birds?

8 Who wrote The Call of the Wild and White Fang?

9 Which common childhood illness related to shingles is
also called varicella?

10 Which sign of the zodiac is also called The
Waterbearer?

7

Quiz 4

ANSWERS:
1 A nine-lash whip, 2 Jamaica, 3 Charles Dickens, 4 Software, 5 Coma,
6 Pampas, 7 Bay of Biscay, 8 Notting Hill, 9 Hanoi, 10 Jesuits.

1 What is a cat-o’-nine-tails?

2 Of which Caribbean country is Montego Bay the main
tourist centre?

3 Who wrote David Copperfield?

4 What name is given to the programs run by a
computer, as opposed to the hardware?

5 In medicine, what name is given to a state of deep
unconsciousness in which the subject is unrousable?

6 What are the flat, treeless plains of Argentina called?

7 Which bay of the Atlantic, between northern Spain and
western France, is noted for its rough seas and high
tides?

8 What was the first British film to take more than one
hundred million dollars at the US box office?

9 What is the capital of Vietnam?

10 What name is given to members of the Roman
Catholic Society of Jesus?

8

Quiz 5

ANSWERS:
1 Koala, 2 Horse, 3 Martin Luther, 4 Nelson Mandela, 5 Neptune,
6 John Huston, 7 Louis Pasteur, 8 The Internationale, 9 Horatio Nelson,
10 Pawnbroker.

1 The name of which animal is an Aboriginal term
meaning ‘no water’?

2 Which animal has the biggest eyes of any living
creature?

3 Which founder of Protestantism appeared before the
Diet of Worms in 121?

4 Which African statesman received the Freedom of the
City of Cardiff in a ceremony in 1998?

5 Which Roman god of the sea is identified with the
Greek god Poseidon?

6 Who directed The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen
and The Dead?

7 Which French chemist and microbiologist devised
vaccines for anthrax and rabies?

8 Which revolutionary anthem was the Soviet national
anthem until 19?

9 Which British admiral had an affair with Emma
Hamilton?

10 What name is given to a dealer licensed to lend
money on the security of an item of portable personal
property?

9

Quiz 6

ANSWERS:
1 Euchre, 2 Samuel Becket, 3 Chicago, 4 Danish, 5 Daylight Saving Time
(putting the clocks forwards and backwards), 6 Triassic, 7 Orchid, 8 James
Coburn, 9 Joseph Lister, 10 Lily Munster.

1 In which card game, played with a deck of 32 cards,
are the jacks known as bowers?

2 Who wrote Waiting for Godot?

3 The Wrigley Building is located in which US city?

4 What nationality was the 1th/1th century astronomer
Tycho Brahe?

5 What was first seriously advocated by a British
builder, William Willett, in his 1907 pamphlet Waste of
Daylight?

6 By the end of which period in Earth’s history had most
dinosaurs become extinct?

7 Calypso, cattleya and pogonia are types of which
flower?

8 Who played Flint in a series of spy films?

9 Who performed the first surgery in England under
antiseptic conditions?

10 Which part in the Munsters TV series was played by
old-time film actress Yvonne de Carlo?

10

Quiz 7

ANSWERS:
1 California, 2 Peter Wright, 3 Francois Mitterand, 4 Battle of Britain, 5 An ice
pick, 6 Bird, 7 Harvest moon, 8 A tidal wave, 9 Kelly, 10 Saltire.

1 In which US state is the Mojave Desert?

2 Which former MI5 officer wrote Spycatcher?

3 Whom did Jacques Chirac succeed as French
president in 199?

4 About which event did Winston Churchill say “Never
in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so
many to so few”?

5 With what weapon was Leon Trotsky assassinated in
Mexico in 190?

6 What sort of creature is a cotinga?

7 What is the name of the full moon closest to the
Autumn Equinox?

8 What is a tsunami?

9 Which Irish surname means ‘warlike one’?

10 What is the name given to a cross in the form of an
‘X’?

11

Quiz 8

ANSWERS:
1 Rheims, 2 Italy, 3 Paul Gauguin, 4 St Bernard, 5 Whoopi Goldberg,
6 Johann Sebastian, 7 Puccini, 8 The Monkees, 9 Olivia Newton John,
10 The Sting.

1 The coronations of most of the French kings took
place in which city in the Marne region of France?

2 In which country is the ski resort of Val Gardena?

3 Van Gogh cut of part of his own left ear during a
quarrel with which other artist?

4 To which breed of dog was Longfellow referring when
he wrote “A traveller, by the faithful hound, half buried
in the snow was found”?

5 Who had an occasional rôle as Guinan, the female
bartender, in the TV series Star Trek: The Next
Generation?

6 What do the initials J S stand for in J S Bach?

7 Who wrote the opera La Boheme?

8 Michael Nesmith is associated with which 1960s pop
group?

9 Who had a hit with On the Banks of the Ohio in 1971
and Hopelessly Devoted to You in 1978?

10 Robert Redford and Paul Newman played two 1920s
conmen in which film?

12

Quiz 9

ANSWERS:
1 Joni Mitchell, 2 Afterburner, 3 American football, 4 Volta, 5 Thirteen Days,
6 The Divine Comedy, 7 Volkswagen, 8 Devon and Cornwall, 9 Liza Minnelli,
10 Haddock.

1 Which Canadian singer recorded the albums Blue
and Miles of Aisles?

2 Which device in a jet engine provides extra thrust for
take-off or supersonic flight?

3 The film Jerry Maguire featured which sport?

4 What is the chief river of Ghana?

5 Which 2001 film about the Cuban missile crisis
starred Kevin Costner?

6 Which epic poem by Dante begins on Good Friday in
the year 1300?

7 Which German motor manufacturer was set up in
1937 to produce a ‘people’s car’?

8 The River Tamar forms a historic boundary between
which two English counties?

9 Who played Sally Bowles in the film Cabaret?

10 Which fish is smoked and sold as finnan haddie?

13

Quiz 10

ANSWERS:
1 A deep inner layer of the skin, 2 The Shining, 3 Index, 4 Zirconium,
5 Opium, 6 The nose, 7 Dr Tracey Clark, 8 Much Ado About Nothing, 9 Ohio,
10 A mongrel dog.

1 What is corium?

2 Which Stanley Kubrick film was based on a Stephen
King novel and starred Jack Nicholson?

3 ‘Indices’ is the plural of which word?

4 Zr is the symbol of which chemical element?

5 Which drug is known in Australia as ‘twang’?

6 To which part of the body does the adjective ‘rhinal’
refer?

7 What was the name of the character played by Tracey
Ullman in the television drama series Ally McBeal?

8 In which play by Shakespeare does the character
Beatrice appear?

9 Which US state is further east: Ohio or Wyoming?

10 ‘Bitser’ is an Australian word for which animal?

1

Quiz 11

ANSWERS:
1 Konstantin Chernenko, 2 Seaview, 3 Pierce Brosnan, 4 Fiat,
5 Newfoundland, 6 Sir Walter Raleigh, 7 Germany, 8 Samuel L Jackson,
9 Alex Haley, 10 Baklava.

1 Who succeeded Yuri Andropov as leader of the Soviet
Union in 1984?

2 What was the name of the submarine in the TV series
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea?

3 Which actor played James Bond in GoldenEye?

4 With which Italian motor company is the Agnelli family
associated?

5 Of which Canadian province is St John’s the capital?

6 Which English adventurer and courtier to Elizabeth I
was executed in 1618?

7 In which country did the rottweiler originate?

8 Which Pulp Fiction actor starred in the remake of the
movie Shaft?

9 Who wrote the novel Roots: The Saga of an American
Family?

10 Which Turkish dish comprises thin layers of filo pastry
containing nuts and honey?