Geography

Question 1

Which mountain, Earth’s highest above sea level, was first scaled in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay?

Answer 1

Everest

Question 2

Designed by Renzo Piano, and located in Southwark, London, which is the tallest building in the United Kingdom?

Answer 2

The Shard

Question 3

In economics, what name is given to a contraction in the business cycle characterised by a decline in production and 4 employment? A country is typically considered to have entered one of these periods of economic decline when its economy has contracted for two consecutive quarters.

Answer 3

Recession

Question 4

“The Old Man of BLANK” is a fell that is the highest point in the historic county of Lancashire. “BLANK Water” is a lake 9 in the Lake District that was the scene of Donald Campbell’s fatal accident while trying to break the world water speed record. Which word replaces the BLANK in both cases?

Answer 4

Coniston

Question 5

Which word, that derives from Greek words meaning “across” and “to scatter”, refers to a population that is spread across regions which are not its geographic homeland?

Answer 5

Diaspora

Question 6

What is the third most populous island in the British Isles (after Great Britain and Ireland)? This island, located just off 11 the coast of mainland Hampshire, is home to much of the population of one of the most densely populated cities in England

Answer 6

Portsea

Question 7

What place name is shared by one of the five ‘Medway Towns’ and a suburb of the London Borough of Havering? The 14 latter of these two places makes up a constituency with Dagenham and gives its name to a steel distribution company located nearby.

Answer 7

Rainham

Question 8

Memphis, New Orleans, and Minneapolis are among the cities that stand on which large river that shares its name with a US state?

Answer 8

Mississippi

Question 9

To coincide with Indonesian Independence Day on August 17th next year, Nusantara is set to be inaugurated as the capital city of Indonesia. Which city will it replace as capital?

Answer 9

Jakarta

Question 10

Which German state has its capital at Munich? Comprising roughly a fifth of the total land area of Germany, this is the largest state in the country.

Answer 10

Bavaria

Question 11

A festival that is held on the last Wednesday of August each year in the Valencian town of Buñol sees participants throw which foodstuff at each other?

Answer 11

Tomatoes

Question 12

Nationwide is an example of which type of financial institution that is owned by its members in a mutual manner? The two words we’re looking for follow “Nationwide” in the full name of that company.

Answer 12

Building Society

Question 13

Prudhoe Bay, Alaska is the northern terminus of which network of roads that stretches for almost 30,000 kilometres? But for a short break at the Darién Gap, it is possible to travel down this network to the southern tip of the Americas.

Answer 13

Pan-American Highway

Question 14

Which Pacific Island country is the only nation to straddle the equator and the 180th meridian, meaning it falls into all four hemispheres?

Answer 14

Republic of Kiribati

Question 15

Which French sociologist wrote the work The Division of Labour in Society? This thinker helped refine the ideas of Auguste Comte and legitimise sociology as an academic discipline.

Answer 15

Emile Durkheim

Question 16

With a name from the Turkic languages that means “black sand”, which desert covers roughly 70 percent of the territory of Turkmenistan?

Answer 16

Karakum or Gara-gum

Question 17

What word is common to all the following: the longest of the Three Sisters rivers in Ireland, the northernmost point of the United States, and a port town in Cumbria?

Answer 17

Barrow: Barrow River, Point Barrow, Barrow in
Furness

Question 18

Which is the largest city, and administrative centre, of the Republika Srpska? This settlement is the second largest city in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Answer 18

Banja Luka

Question 19

Found off the coast of Brazil in the Atlantic Ocean, and dubbed one of the most dangerous places on Earth, the 19 uninhabited Ilha da Queimada Grande is commonly known by what nickname? Another island with this nickname was where a Ukrainian border guard famously exclaimed “Russian warship, go fuck yourself” in 2022.

Answer 19

Snake Island

Question 20

Xu Jiayin is the founder and chairperson of which large property developer? With liabilities of over $300 billion in 2022, 23 the difficulties faced by this company in making payments on its debts sparked the ongoing property crisis engulfing the Chinese economy.

Answer 20

Evergrande

Question 21

Officially called the vertical chamber apparatus, what more popular three-word name did the psychologist Harry 25 Harlow give to his isolation chamber that was used for experiments on rhesus macaque monkeys? He would place monkeys, who had already bonded with their mothers, alone into the device for up to 3 months at a time.

Answer 21

Pit of Dispair

Question 22

The national flag of which South American country has a field of nine horizontal stripes alternating between white and  blue with a sun in the top left corner?

Answer 22

Uruguay

Question 23

Erected in 2005 as a memorial to Jews who were massacred during World War Two, the ‘Shoes on the Danube Bank’  can be found in which capital city?

Answer 23

Budapest

Question 24

Which author and economist wrote the works Race and Economics (1975) and Basic Economics (2000)? A prominent  black conservative for decades, this person turned down jobs in both the Ford and Reagan administrations.

Answer 24

Thomas Sowell

Question 25

The Kasubi Tombs, that serves as the burial grounds for four kabakas (kings), is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that can  be found in which sub-Saharan African city?

Answer 25

Kampala

Question 26

Telugu, Tamil, and Malayalam are some of the most spoken languages in which language family that is found primarily in the Indian subcontinent?

Answer 26

Dravidian

Question 27

Which town in Aberdeenshire is the biggest fishing port in the United Kingdom in terms of total landings by vessels? It has a population of roughly 19,000 and is the easternmost town on the Scottish mainland.

Answer 27

Peterhead

Question 28

The humorously named The Bottom is the capital and largest town of which island? This island is also home to Mount Scenery, the highest point of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Answer 28

Saba

Question 29

Sharing part of its name with a much larger settlement in Lincolnshire, which village in West Yorkshire is home to the branch of the British Library that houses the majority of the UK’s newspaper archive?

Answer 29

Boston Spa

Question 30

The Syrian city of Homs sits on which river? In antiquity, the important city of Antioch was sometimes known as “Antioch on the” this river.

Answer 30

Orontes