Allow yourself 45 minutes. Resist the temptation to look at the answers or crib from books, friends, family or (least reliable of all) the internet.
1. In which African nation are more than 400 languages spoken, including Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and Edo?
2. What is the most southerly tip of mainland Britain?
3. Where would you find a parietal bone?
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4. Which large bird is being reintroduced to Salisbury Plain this year?
5. Who burnt Atlanta and had a tank named after him?
6. What architectural term denotes “relating to or denoting a classical order of architecture characterised by a column with scroll shapes on either side of the capital”?
7. Which painter produced a series of views of Rouen Cathedral in different light?
8. In which modern nation is the ancient temple complex of Angkor Wat situated?
9. Which constellation contains the stars Betelgeuse and Rigel?
10. What is the more common name for the plant Alcea (or Althea) rosea?
11. Which Texas-based company became the biggest corporate bankruptcy in US history in late 2001?
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12. What is the most plentiful element present in the Earth’s crust?
13. How many sharps in D major?
14. Where was a church council held in 1545-63 that initiated the Counter-Reformation?
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15. In computing, how many bytes are there in a kilobyte?
16. In cooking, what does the term “Lyonnaise” usually denote?
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17. To which culture does the Popol Vuh belong?
18. Who wrote the plays Copenhagen and Democracy?
19. Which country uses the tugrik as its unit of currency?
20. What is the main ingredient of falafel?
21. Who recorded Permission to Land?
22. Which British director includes among his films A Zed and Two Noughts and The Falls?
23. Who was the trader in Singapore whose dealings led to the collapse of the Barings Group in 1995?
24. What is the best-known work of the anthropologist and folklorist Sir James Frazer?
25. What is the English equivalent to the French phrase “au royaume des aveugles les borgnes sont rois”?
26. What do the initials HSBC stand for?
27. What is the origin of the name of the Nullarbor Plain in South and Western Australia?
28. What colour is the mineral malachite?
29. What is the English equivalent of the German word Stickstoff?
30. Who hit six 6s in an over at Swansea in 1968?
31. Which Greek mythological king was punished in Hades by having repeatedly to roll a huge stone up a hill only for it to roll down again?
32. Who was Henry VIII’s third wife ?
33. Under what screen name did Virginia McMath dance in the films Top Hat and Swing Time?
34. In which century did the Hundred Years’ War begin?
35. Who was the innovative US alto-saxophonist and jazz composer who teamed with Dizzy Gillespie in 1945 and pioneered bebop?
36. Which novel begins with the words “Squire Trelawney, Dr Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars about . . .”?
37. In which book does one of the characters own a Raven named Grip?
38. Which photographic agency was founded by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and others?
39. M, V, E, M, J, ?, ?, ? represents a particular sequence. What are the missing three letters?
40. What name is given to the series of numbers 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 . . . in which each number after the first pair is the sum of the two preceding numbers?
41. In the medical process of NMR imaging of body structure, for what do the letters NMR stand?
42. What is the name given to a line on a map connecting points having the same duration of sunshine?
43. Which song became the late Bob Hope’s signature tune?
44. Who wrote the novel Gravity’s Rainbow?
45. Whose Fourth Symphony is subtitled The Inextinguishable?
46. Neon, argon and krypton are members of which family of elements?
47. In which opera is Violetta Valery the main character?
48. What is the equation linking voltage, current and resistance in electricity flow, V=IR, known as?
49. Who wrote the poem beginning “Tyger Tyger, burning bright In the forests of the night”?
50. Which Conservative politician was three times Prime Minister between 1923 and 1937?
51. In which year was the Treaty of Rome signed, setting up the European Economic Community?
52. Where was Captain Cook killed by islanders in 1779?
53. Which rock group’s albums include Japanese Whispers, Disintegration and Wild Mood Swings?
54. Which prolific Times writer died in August 2004?
55. Where did Abraham Lincoln deliver the speech beginning “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation . . . ?
56. Which radio waveband covers broadcasts at frequencies between 30MHz and 300MHz?
57. In which country does the world’s largest Christian church stand?
58. Who was the Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, and writer whose more than 800 surviving letters provide valuable insight into the events of the 1st century BC?
59. In which year did Rolls meet Royce?
60. What is the full name of DNA?
61. For what invention did John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain, and William B. Shockley receive the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956?
62. Who was the Swiss sculptor noted for his elongated human figures in bronze?
63. What is the name of the depression where the deepest known ocean depth occurs?
64. Which of Shakespeare’s characters speaks the words “Was ever woman in this humour wooed?”?
65. Who was the American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics?
66. Who is the Director-General of the BBC?
67. Grizzled Skipper, Painted Lady and Duke of Burgundy are all names of what?
68. Who won the FA Cup Final in the 2002-03 season?
69. In which country was the world’s first passenger-carrying monorail opened in 1888?
70. Which 1960s television series was filmed in Portmeirion, North Wales?
71. To the nearest whole number, how many grammes are there in two ounces?
72. What word can mean both a creeping woodland evergreen plant and a spiral-shelled gastropod?
73. What is the name of the fish, thought to have become extinct about 60 million years ago, which was caught alive in the Indian Ocean in 1938?
74. What follows Genesis and precedes Leviticus?
75. Who is the 2004 Wimbledon women’s singles champion?
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