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General Knowledge Quiz #35

Can you answer these random trivia questions?
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: March 23, 2023
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First submittedMay 31, 2012
Times taken145,564
Average score55.0%
Rating4.20
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Question
Answer
What city is famous for its leaning tower?
Pisa
What was the name of Louis XIV's residence?
Versailles
What activity, invented in California around 1950, was originally called "street surfing"?
Skateboarding
What country had prisons known as gulags?
The Soviet Union
Who was Wooster's valet?
Jeeves
What country uses the Baht as its currency?
Thailand
What disease was quinine used to treat?
Malaria
In the song "Amazing Grace" what four words come after "Amazing Grace"?
How sweet the sound
What country was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103
over Lockerbie, Scotland?
Libya
How many syllables does a haiku have?
17
What is the American name for the board game known in England as "draughts"?
Checkers
Who is the only English king to abdicate voluntarily?
Edward VIII
What toxic chemical element is contained inside fluorescent bulbs?
Mercury
What two letters end 18 of the 20 most common last names in Croatia?
What type of animal is the mascot of the World Wildlife Fund?
Giant panda
Which Shakespearean play is it bad luck to mention inside a theater?
Macbeth
Who is the author that created James Bond?
Ian Fleming
What disease is associated with hydrophobia?
Rabies
What plant is linen made from?
Flax
What is the opposite of an acid?
a Base
56 Comments
+13
Level 14
May 31, 2012
I always thought that linen was made out of cotton
+1
Level 42
May 27, 2014
Me too.
+29
Level 48
May 27, 2014
Cotton is made out of cotton.
+1
Level 58
Nov 15, 2019
True dat
+1
Level 66
May 24, 2016
Well, it is not made out of flackseed
+3
Level 89
Aug 16, 2018
Right. It's made of flax fiber.
+2
Level 16
Sep 16, 2012
Thank you to House for the hydrophobia one
+1
Level 78
May 27, 2014
Only knew Jeeves becuase I read an interview with Hugh Laurie, who is a Wooster fan.
+7
Level 43
May 27, 2014
Not just a fan! He and Stephen Fry played Jeeves and Wooster in a (fantastic) tv series.
+1
Level 78
May 27, 2014
Really need to read those stories - and watch the show, of course. Laurie is an excellent actor and comedian (as well as Fry).
+4
Level 78
Nov 27, 2018
Seen and read some of it now :)
+1
Level 31
Apr 21, 2014
fml can't spell Libya...
+3
Level 56
May 16, 2014
I put 'chequers' instead of checkers - think I should have got that one!
+1
Level ∞
May 16, 2014
That will work now
+9
Level 81
May 27, 2014
Then the clue should be "what is the British name for the American name for the board game known in England as draughts?"
+6
Level 74
May 27, 2014
Or even, "What is the British name for the American name for the Sumerian board game known in England as draughts?" (How is that pronounced, BTW? As "drafts" or "drawts"?)
+1
Level 58
Nov 15, 2019
You can't spell Victoria Cross properly so your opinion on this is nullified
+3
Level 79
Mar 8, 2020
It's pronounced /drɑːfts/.
+1
Level 83
Mar 24, 2023
Or with a short A in northern accents
+6
Level 85
Jul 30, 2015
Can you accept "The Scottish Play" for Macbeth"
+2
Level 79
Mar 8, 2020
Thanks for doing so!!
+2
Level 35
Jun 5, 2016
I remembered "hydrophobia" from Old Yeller.
+1
Level 55
Jul 18, 2017
Is it possible to rephrase the Wooster question? In the UK, we call them butlers, not valets. I didn't have a clue what a valet was until the answer appeared afterwards. And it is a British series after all... :)
+8
Level 70
Sep 22, 2017
I don't think Jeeves was a 'butler' as such. I think 'valet' is more what his position was..... as in "'Jeeves was Bertie Wooster's gentleman's personal gentleman,' said Richard at his most pompous, straying dangerously where angels might fear to tread. 'A valet, not a butler.'

'But Bertie said Jeeves could buttle with the best of them.:.

+11
Level 72
Apr 4, 2018
Not according to "Downton Abbey". They are two different positions - although Mr. Carson, the butler, did sometimes graciously fill in as a valet. And it is a VERY British series... :)
+6
Level 86
Jan 9, 2022
A brit who thinks valets are the same as butlers? Who says "it's a British series after all" without knowing that they use the word valet IN the series?

It turns out that this kind of knowledge ISN'T because of a quiz being "too US-centric" or "too UK-centric" or any of that nonsense. Sometimes, it just so happens that people don't know certain things.

Incidentally, Jeeves was without any question whatsoever a valet, not a butler.

+7
Level ∞
Mar 23, 2023
How dare you refer to a valet as a butler. Have you no decorum, sir!
+2
Level 58
Apr 6, 2018
why is the answer that comes up to opposite to acid is "a base" when the answer is alkali? I typed alkali and it said yes but gives "a base".

Is this something USAmericans do in chemistry but not UK Britons? I shall have to go ask my incredibly talented nephew headed to do chemistry at Cambridge next academic year.

+10
Level 89
Aug 14, 2018
I learned base as opposite to acid, and alkali only those bases that are water soluble.
+9
Level 85
Aug 14, 2018
An alkali is a specific type of base. All alkalis are bases, but not all bases are alkalis.
+1
Level 60
Dec 14, 2020
i think they should also except basic because i kept trying that and basic is on the opposite side of acid
+3
Level 61
Aug 7, 2018
I don't know if that was my worst score on one of these General Knowledge quizzes, but I felt like it was.
+13
Level 89
Aug 14, 2018
If your score on the other G.K. quizzes were all higher, then this was your worst.
+6
Level 92
Aug 16, 2018
How many syllables in a haiku? I count 3....

Oh, that wasn't a trick question. Moving on.

+1
Level 48
Sep 17, 2018
in modern haiku that is no longer the case. the japanese wrote vertically in a single line, and apart from that, some of the "syllables" are actually verbal puncuation as they were no commas, fullstops etc

it was just the early translators like Blyth that decided to put them in a form that readers recognised, ie a "verse", but many modern haijin

maybe reword it to include" Traditionally"

http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/style-and-usage/rules-for-writing-haiku.html

+2
Level 78
Apr 6, 2021
If we're getting technical, traditional haikus did not depend on the number of syllables, but rather on the number of "on" in a word.
+1
Level 72
May 30, 2021
Quicksilver should be accepted for mercury.
+1
Level 67
Jun 27, 2021
What country is (probably?) responsible for the Lockerbie bombing?
+4
Level 66
Jul 22, 2021
Libya admitted responsibility, so...
+1
Level 69
Jul 28, 2021
I literally guessed everything in Southeast Asia except for Thailand...
+2
Level 72
Nov 23, 2021
Quinine's efficacy in treating malarial fever led to its use in treating fevers of all kinds (although it wasn't generally effective against them). So the question might be improved by qualifying with "initially" or "primarily".

Quinine's history is actually pretty interesting, since it's really the first effective medicine in the treatment of any infectious disease

+1
Level 77
Sep 26, 2023
None of what you said makes the statement on the quiz invalid.
+2
Level 89
Dec 21, 2021
Just for accuracy, the key element to a haiku is not that it has 17 syllables, but that it has a "cutting word" at the end of one of the first two phrases. The "cutting word" (kireji) serves as a break or separation between (the) two thoughts/images/concepts in the haiku.

Simply arranging 17 syllables into 3 lines of 5/7/5 does not a (traditional) haiku make.

Also, there are poems that are considered to be haiku that are not 17 syllables... because they meet the criteria of separating two ideas with a kireji.

+4
Level 66
Sep 13, 2022
antacid
+4
Level 78
Mar 23, 2023
Tums?
+5
Level 85
Mar 23, 2023
I recently attended a play, and while waiting to be joined by my wife and a guest of hers, I quietly took this quiz. Not being at all superstitious, I answered "Macbeth". Then my wife showed up, accompanied by my mother-in-law. I may have to rethink my position.
+3
Level 70
Mar 24, 2023
Could you accept "Palace of Versailles" for Louis XVI residence?
+1
Level 78
Mar 24, 2023
I don't know why i can remember Wallis Simpson, but not Edward VIII. I knew whoever it was had a high ordinal number, but i couldn't remember the name.
+1
Level 68
Apr 30, 2023
Although the public attribute the Lockerbie bombing to Libya, I read a book that says that it turns out that Syria militants were actually responsible for the Lockerbie bombing, not Libya.
+1
Level 76
May 6, 2023
So its "the public" versus "a book", is it? Unimpeachable credentials everywhere you look. I'm truly torn.
+1
Level 38
Apr 30, 2023
Edward was King of the UK not England

English Monarchy ended in 1707 when the English and Scottish crowns joined to make the British crown

+1
Level 65
Apr 30, 2023
I feel like this quiz a bit UK-centric
+4
Level 31
Apr 30, 2023
well finally something not US centric is nae bad thing
+1
Level 29
Jul 20, 2023
Thomas chippendale created the cabinet... furniture is too vague. Coffee table is a piece of furniture but no one is guessing that >:-(
+1
Level 77
Sep 26, 2023
Holy crap, the amount of pedantry and nitpicking on this one is astonishing. Are people so desperate to show how smart they are?
+1
Level 28
Jan 25, 2024
Could you please accept Versaille for Versailles as the the S is silent in English