Mastermind Club

Quiz 2019   Number 13

Answers

Set by Mel Kinsey

 A quiz about Caribbean Islands

1. Occupies one-third of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. A former French colony, it became the first independent black republic and the only nation ever to form from a successful slave rebellion.   Haiti

2. A unitary island nation in the Caribbean and the smallest nation in the Americas in both area and population. Historically the British dependency of Anguilla was also a part of this union. Alexander Hamilton, the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, was born here.  St.Kitts & Nevis

3. It is also known as the "Helen of the West Indies" as the island switched between British and French control so often it was likened to the mythical Helen of Troy. It is one of the Windward Islands. St.Lucia

4. Has its capital at Kingstown and Bequia is the largest island and is one of the few places in the world where limited whaling is still allowed by the International Whaling Commission.St.Vincent & The Grenadines

5. Comprise around sixty semi-tropical Caribbean islands, ranging in size from the largest, Tortola, to tiny uninhabited islets. Capital is Road Town. British Virgin Islands

6. A new overseas collectivity of France that came into being on February 22, 2007.   St Martin

7. One of the twenty-six regions of France, home of the poet Saint-John Perse, the pseudonym used by Alexis Léger, winner of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Literature.

   Guadaloupe

8. The most populous country in the Caribbean. Known as 'Pearl of Antilles.'    Cuba

9.  An island nation located in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean with two major islands. Columbus landed on his second voyage in 1493 and named one of the islands after a church in Seville, Spain. The English pop band Duran Duran shot the video for their 1980s hit "Rio" here. Antigua and Barbuda

10. In Latin, its name means "Sunday", which was the day on which it was discovered by Columbus. Has been nicknamed the "Nature Isle of the Caribbean" due to its seemingly unspoiled natural beauty. It is one of the youngest islands in the Lesser Antilles, and it is still being formed by geothermal-volcanic activity. In 2004, it was selected for the film of Pirates of the Caribbean. The Sisserou parrot is the national bird and is indigenous to its mountain forests.      Dominica

11. There are two main islands, which are the only inhabited ones of the group, . A great many of the tourists who visit the islands are Canadian. Owing to this, the islands' status as a British colony, and historic trade links, some politicians in Canada and here have suggested some form of union.  Turks and Caicos Islands

12. The most easterly island in the Caribbean and the only island completely surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. As early as 1511, the island is referred to as 'the island of the bearded ones' in an official Spanish document.

    Barbados

13. Was given its name by Columbus on his second voyage to the New World in 1493, after its namesake located in Catalonia, Spain. It is often referred to as the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean, due both to its resemblance to coastal Ireland and to the Irish descent of most of its early European settlers. With the advent of Beatles producer George Martin's studio in the 1970s, the island attracted world-famous musicians.   Monserrat

14. Gustavia, which is the main town of the island, was named after King Gustav III of Sweden, and remains as a reflection of the Swedish period. Part of the 'French West Indies' group; Saint-Barthelemy

15. A 32 km-long island of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean Sea, just north of Venezuela. It is in the Realm of Kingdom of the Netherlands. The predominant language is Papiamento.    Aruba

16. Currently occupies the eastern portion of the Caribbean island called Hispaniola. Was the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas after Greenland, and became the first point of colonization in the Western Hemisphere by explorers from Europe. Domican Republic

17. An English-speaking nation consisting of two thousand keys and seven hundred islands and cays that form an archipelago. The origin of the name is ambiguous. It is thought to derive from the Spanish for "shallow seas"; others trace the name to the Lucayan word for a "large upper middle land."    The Bahamas

18. The islands form an autonomous part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The island of Aruba was part of this group until 1986, when it was granted a "status aparte", and became a separate part of the kingdom. Since 2006 the islands have given rise to diplomatic disputes between Venezuela and the Netherlands.     Netherlands Antilles

     

19. Napoleon's wife, Joséphine, was born here to a family of the wealthy Creole elite. The city of Saint-Pierre (destroyed by a volcanic eruption of Mount Pelée), was often referred to as the Paris of the Lesser Antilles. Martinique

     

20. Group of islands that are an insular area of the United States. Consist of the four main islands of St. Croix, St. John, St. Thomas, and Water Island, and many smaller islands. It is the only part of the United States where traffic drives on the left.  U.S, Virgin Islands

21. A British overseas territory that is a global offshore financial services centre and one of the leading tourist scuba diving destinations in the world. Columbus named them 'Las Tortugas' after the numerous sea turtles there. Has the dubious honor of being the most hurricane strikes in history. Large parts of the novel The Firm by John Grisham, and the film, take place here. The Cayman Islands

     

22. Its indigenous Arawakan-speaking Taíno inhabitants named the island to mean either the "Land of Springs," or the "Land of Wood and Water." Formerly a Spanish possession known as Santiago, it later became a British West Indies Crown colony. It is the third most populous anglophone country in the Americas, after Canada and the United States. The musical genres reggae, ska, mento, rocksteady, dub, and, more recently, dancehall and ragga all originated in the island's vibrant popular urban recording industry and internationally known reggae musician Bob Marley was born here. Jamacia

23. The Amerindian name for one of the islands is usually translated as 'The Land of the Hummingbird.' Columbus named the islands as 'Holy Trinity' and 'Bella Forma.' Birthplace of calypso music and the steelpan, which is widely claimed to be the only acoustic musical instrument invented during the 20th century. Home of two Nobel Prize-winning authors, V. S. Naipaul and St. Lucian-born Derek Walcott. Trinidad & Tobago

24. Is the second-smallest independent country in the Western Hemisphere. Columbus first sighted the island and gave it the alias 'Conception Island.' Operation Urgent Fury was an invasion of this island by the US and several other nations in response to a coup in 1983 Grenada

     

25. A British overseas territory in the Caribbean, the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles. The name derives from the word for "eel" in any of various Romance languages, probably chosen because of the island's eel-like shape.  Anguilla

Mastermind Club

Quiz 2019   Number 14

Answers

A Quiz on Sculpture & Sculptors

                                  Set by Mel Kinsey

1/   When you think of sculptures of reclining forms thatrepresent human bodies, which British artist who lived in Perry Green, Hertfordshire comes to mind?

Mastermind Club

Quiz 2019   Number 15

A Geograpgical Quiz 

Answers

                                  Set by Mel Kinsey

1/ The mighty Himalayas take the cake as far as the list of highest mountains goes; so, what is the highest peak outside of this range?

Mount Aconcagua, in the Andes

2/What gorge in the Ngorongoro area of Tanzania is considered the seat of humanity after the discovery of the earliest known specimens of modern man?  Olduvai Gorge

3/Upon seeing which stunning South American geographic feature did Eleanor Roosevelt reportedly say "Poor Niagara"?  Iguazu Falls

4/The Shatt al-Arab waterway constitutes a part of the border between which countries?  Iran and Iraq

5/ What is also known as Qomolangma or Sagarmatha or Chomolungma in the native tongues of the people around it?

Mount Everest

6/ Jarbah island in the Mediterranean Sea is a popular tourist place which is said to be so idyllic that one forgets all sense of time there. This is attested by Homer who called it as what in his Odyssey?

Land of the lotus-eaters

7/ Which beautiful geographic feature can be shaped as Crescentic, Linear, Star, Dome, Parabolic, Longitudinal, Transverse and Reversing?   Sand dunes

8/ Which country became the first sovereign state of the 21st century when Indonesia relinquished control on it in May 2002?

East Timor

9/ Three of the ten largest islands in the world belong to which country? Canada  - with Baffin (5th largest), Victoria (9th largest) and Ellesmere (10th largest)

10/ What is the largest country in the world without permanent rivers?  Saudi Arabia

11/ Which national capital is the only city entirely built in the 20th century to be considered a World Heritage Site by UNESCO?

Brasilia

12/ Which Peruvian city was the historic capital of the sun-worshipping Inca empire?   Cusco

13/ What is the geographic and historical term for the Western Asian peninsula which comprises about two-thirds of Turkey?

Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor

14/ After Russia, what is the second largest country in area amongst the former Soviet republics? 

 Kazakhstan  It is the 9th largest country in the world

15/ Which tiny landlocked European country, also the smallest German-speaking country in the world, has bordering countries that are also landlocked?   Liechtenstein

16/ The city of DeKalb, Illinois is credited as the first manufacturing site of what 'restraining' invention that revolutionized ranching in the US?   Barbed wire

17/ Flemish Cap, an area of shallow waters in the north Atlantic east of Newfoundland and Labrador is featured in which 2000 film as the final fishing grounds for Billy Tyne (George Clooney) and his crew?

The Perfect Storm

18/ Established in 1974 in a self-governing territory, which is the largest national park in the world with an area of 972,000 sq kms (375,000 square miles)?    Northeast Greenland National Park

19/ Among US states with the highest number of national parks, California and Alaska come in first with 8 each. Which state comes next with 5 of them?  Utah

With Arches, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands and Zion

20/ The erstwhile Yugoslavia was broken up into seven countries. Can you name them?

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, and Kosovo

Mastermind Club

Quiz 2019   Number 16

A Science Fiction Quiz

Answers

                                  Set by Mel Kinsey

1/ Which number is the answers to everything in Douglas Adams “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”? 42

2/ Which 1895 book talks about Eloi and Morlocks? 

The Time Machine by H.G.Wells

3/ Which 1960 novel by Walter Miller is set in a Roman Catholic monastery after a devastating nuclear war and spans thousands of years as civilisation rebuilds itself?  A Canticle for Leibowitz

4/ Which book by Robert Heinlein is about the adventures of Valentine Michael Smith?  Stranger in a Strange Land

5/ The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham in which the protagonist wakes up to find the world strangely quiet inspired which zombie-fest film? 28 Days Later

6/ Pierre Boulle the author of The Bridge on the River Kwai also wrote which novel made into a Charlton Heston film, with a wicked twist ending?       Planet of the Apes

7/ Probably the greatest work of Isaac Asimov, which ‘series’ is about a certain Hari Seldon who spent his life developing a branch of mathematics known as psychohistory?

The Foundation Series

8/ Which book by Carl Sagan was made into an equally good movie starring Jodie Foster and concerns extra-terrestrials contacting the earth? Contact

9/ Battlefield Earth, made into an atrocious movie starring John Travolta was written by who? L. Ron Hubbard

10/ Which 1985 classic by a Canadian author features Offred and explores themes of women in subjugation and the various means by which they gain a hold in the world?

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

11/ Which 1961 novel by Stanislaw Lem that deals with the limitation of communication, was the subject of a 1972 film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky as well as a 2002 remake featuring George Clooney?     Solaris

12/ Which novel set in the 26th After Ford dystopia portrays an artificial society in which everything is programmed? 

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

13/ Which prolific author is known for his several stories that were made into films, but his best novel probably is The Three Stigmata of palmer Eldritch?  Philip K. Dick

14 Brian Aldis’s influential story Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, was the basis for which Stanley Kubrick-developed Steven Spielberg film? A.I. Artificial Intelligence

15/ In which book by Ursula Le Guin is set on the planet of Gethen is there no gender?    Left Hand of Darkness

16 Which 1984 novel, the defining work of cyberpunk was the winner of science-fiction’s ‘triple crown’ – the Nebula Award, the Philip K Dick Award and the Hugo Award?

Neuromancer by William Gibson

17/ Which classic work of dystopia takes its title from the purported fact that that ‘it is the temperature at which book-paper catches fire and burns’? Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

18/ Which bona-fide classic, made into an equally classic film was expanded by its author from the short story The Sentinel? 

2001: A Space Odyssey

19/ Which cult classic is set on the planet of Arrakis and concerns the quest for the spice Melange? Dune by Frank Herbert

20 / With Shikasta, which author and Nobel-laureate, best known for The Golden Notebook, dwelt into science fiction? Doris Lessing

Mastermind Club

Quiz 2019   Number 17

A  Quiz on the Nobel Prize

Answers

                                  Set by Mel Kinsey

1/ Who was the youngest Nobel Prize winner, in any catagory?  

Malala Yousafzai aged 17 ( Peace Prize in 2014)

2/ Which two prizes  were awarded posthumously?

Eric Axel Karfeldt (Literature in 1931) and Dag Hammarskjold (Peace in 1961)

3/ Which four people have won more than 1 prize?

Marie Curie (Physics 1903 & Chemistry in 1911)

Linus Pauling (Chemistry in 1954 & Peace in 1962)

John Bardeen (Physics in 1956 & 1972)

Frederick Sanger (Chemistry in 1958 & 1980)

4/ The prizes are awarded on which date, the  anniversary of Nobel's death?

December 10th

5/ What is the maximum number of people a prize can be shared amomng?   Three

6/  Who is the only  UK Prime Minister to receive the prize?

 Winston Churchill (for Literature in 1953) 

7/ Who are the only Father and Son to share a prize?

William Henry Bragg and Willian Laurence Bragg (Physics in 1915)

8/ Which family has 5 prizes?   The Curie's (Maire Curie won 2, her husband Pierre Curie won 1, Her daughter Irene Joliot-Curie won the Chemistry prize in 1935 and her second daughter was the director of UNICEF when it won the Peace prize in 1965)

9/ Who was the first woman to win the Literature prize?  Selma Lagerlof  (in 1909)

10/ Who was the first Asian to win in any catagory? 

Rabindranath Tagore (Literature in 1913)

11/ Who is the only person to reject the Peace Prize? Le Duc Tho in 1973

12/ Who was the first woman to win the Peace prize?   Bertha Vonn Suttner in 1905

13/  Who is the only person to reject the Literature prize? Jean-Paul Sartre in 1964

14/ Known as "The Father of the United Nations" which American won the 1945 Peace Prize?   Cordell Hull 

15/ The Nobel prizes are awarded in Stockholm, apart from the Peace prize which is awarded in which city?     Oslo

16/  Who was the first American to win in any catagory  

Theodore Roosevelt (Peace in 1906)