Season 1 - Week 6 Flashcards
Country Code Top-Level Domains (CC TLD) is thedomain assigned to each country on the internet. For example, India has “.in” as its CC TLD. The chemical element with atomic number 12, an alkaline earth metal commonly used in alloys with aluminium, has a chemical symbol that is the internet domain (CC TLD) for which large island nation?
Madagascar
[.Mg - Magnesium]
WHICH ANCIENT GAME of calculation and strategy played widely in West Africa (and now also around the world) involves 2 players attempting to capture the seeds of their opponent, moving them from six playing holes to their own bank?
Mancala or Warri
In the SI system of units, prefixes are added to unit names to produce multiples and submultiples of the original unit. So, 10 to the power of 3 would have the prefix kilo to refer to a thousand, 10 to the power of 6 would have mega to refer to a million, etc. Similarly, the prefix peta (10 to the power of 15) refers to WHAT LARGE NUMBER, the abbreviation of
which all of us in this quiz have heard for a few weeks now?
Quadrillion
[Prompt on ‘Quad’]
Named the Female World Swimmer of the Year in 1984, 1986, and 1988 by Swimming World, WHICH East German athlete became the first woman to win six individual gold medals at a single Olympics in Seoul 1988? Her achievements were, however, marred by the revelation that the East German contingent was being doped by their coaches.
Kristin Otto
The [Blank] Index is a mock mathematical measure of how far people will, on average, read through a book before giving up. It was invented by American mathematician Jordan Ellenberg, who created it in a blog for The Wall Street Journal in 2014. The Index is named after WHICH physicist, whose book [blank] is often dubbed, “the most unread book of all time”?
Stephen Hawking
In mountaineering, WHAT TERM refers to altitudes above a certain point where the pressure of oxygen is insufficient to sustain human life for an extended time span? This point is generally tagged at altitudes with less than 356 millibars of atmospheric pressure. All 14 peaks with summits in this zone are located in the Himalayas and Karakoram of Asia.
Death Zone
[Accept ‘lethal zone’]
The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term as, “a huntsman’s assistant who keeps the hounds from straying by driving them back using a [blank] into the main body of the pack”. In a political context, it ensures that members of the party vote according to
the party platform, rather than their own individual ideology or the will of their donors or constituents. What term?
Whip
In French cuisine, the mother sauces are a group of sauces upon which many other sauces (‘daughter sauces’) are based. The most common list is attributed to Auguste Escoffier, who listed 4 mother sauces and added notes that indicated 1 more. WHICH OF ESCOFFIER’S MOTHER SAUCES, a cold emulsion of egg yolk with oil and vinegar, was
originally placed by Escoffier not in the main mother sauce list but in a chapter on cold sauces, and described in notes as a mother sauce for all cold sauces?
Mayonnaise
The International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation (UIAA) recognizes 14 mountains that have summits in the death zone. The criteria for inclusion are having a summit above a certain height over sea level, and sufficient independence from neighboring peaks. What is the POPULAR TERM for these 14 peaks, referring again to the height at which the death zone is said to begin?
8-Thousanders
[8000 is good enough]
This phrase, in its literal sense, is the buying and selling of [Blank]. Due to the difficulties in evaluating the merits of a [Blank] offered for sale, its sale offered great opportunities for dishonesty, leading to the use of this term to refer to complex bargainings, such as political votes. WHAT IS THIS TERM that is often used in India when there are attempts to bring down a government or a scramble to make up a majority?
Horse Trading
In philosophy, a razor is a principle or rule of thumb that allows one to eliminate (“shave off”) unlikely explanations for a phenomenon. Hanlon’s Razor states “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” While commonly attributed to a 1980 joke writer, it is also speculated that this razor (as well as its name) might be a corruption of a quote from the 1941 novella Logic of Empire. WHO IS THE AUTHOR of the novella?
Robert A. Heinlein
[Hanlon possibly being a corruption of Heinlein]
WHICH temperate grassland in Southern Africa is a flat area covered in grass or low scrub, especially in the countries of South Africa, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, and Botswana? It is named after the Afrikaans word for “field”.
Veldt
In human anatomy, the quadriceps (Or Quads) refers to the large muscle group at the front of the thigh, which is divided into four distinct portions and acts to extend the leg. What major artery is inside this muscle, which derives its name from the Latin for “thigh”?
Femoral Artery
[Prompt on Femur]
WHICH ANCIENT GAME requires its two players to race to “bear off”, or remove all 15 of their pieces from the board? Elements of the game are evident in ancient games across ages and cultures, but the modern version features 24 narrow triangles with players rolling pairs of dice to determine movement,
making victories a near-even mix of skill and luck.
Backgammon
The chemical element with atomic number 47, a precious white transition metal, is the internet domain (CC TLD) of which Caribbean nation? Incidentally, the element’s chemical name and symbol come from a different South American nation where large reserves of this metal supposedly existed.
Antigua and Barbuda
[Accept Antigua, the part which gives the code; .Ag - Silver]
In 2019, which British-Nepalese climber became the fastest to climb all 14 eight-thousanders, climbing them in 6 months and 6 days, with supplementary oxygen? The person’s story has been adapted into a Netflix show, as well.
Nimsdai “Nims” Purja
WHICH Australian swimmer won the World Swimmer of the Year award four times between 1998 and 2003? His tally of five Olympic gold medals is the most for any Australian, a feat he shares with a modern-day swimmer Emma Mckeon.
Ian Thorpe
A quad, or quadruple, is a jump with at least four revolutions in a particular sport. These have become increasingly common among World and Olympic level competitions, to the point that not performing a quad in a program has come to be seen as a severe handicap. Which sport are these jumps a part of, the first-ever winter sport that was included in the Olympics?
Figure Skating
[Prompt on ICE SKATING or SKATING]
Written, produced, and performed by American singer Pharrell Williams, this song was released as the first and only single from the soundtrack for the film Despicable Me 2. WHICH SONG, that became the most downloaded song the year it came out?
Happy
The term derives from the practice of placing a [blank] around the neck of a castrated ram that leads a flock of sheep to aid the shepherd in knowing the movement of the flock even when they’re out of sight. In politics, the term characterizes a region where political tendencies match in microcosm those of a wider area, such that the result of an election in the smaller region might predict the eventual result in the larger region. What political term?
Bellwether
[Wether is a castrated ram]
Which sauce was originally described by Escoffier as a daughter/small sauce, but was moved to the mother sauces list in the first English translation of his book ‘A Guide to Modern Cookery’? It is a warm emulsion of egg yolk, melted butter, and lemon juice or vinegar.
Hollandaise
WHAT CLASSICAL FORM OF VERSE appearing in England in the 18th century has a strict rhythmic pattern in which the first, second, and fifth lines rhyme and align, while the third and fourth lines are shorter and share a different rhyme? The subject matter of such poems is usually humorous and frequently rude.
Limerick
This South Indian actor has been in the film industry for 50 years as of today, making his debut in 1971 as a child artist. He is a three-time National Award Winner, one for his work in the English language film Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and the other for works such as Ponthan Mada (1994) and Mathilukal (1998). WHAT IS THE STAGE NAME of this legend from one of the Southern film industries?
Mammootty
Zlín, a company town based in Czech Republic was the original headquarters of WHICH COMPANY? This company has also set up many other company towns, such as X-wa (a play on Ottawa) and X-pur in Pakistan for workers who work in their factories. [X, being the name of the company, of course]
Bata
[Yes, Batawa and Batapur are real places]
This gospel-fueled song by R. Kelly seems out of place in a movie like Space Jam in which Michael Jordan plays with WB cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. Yet, it a gives the movie an emotional lift when it suddenly plays at the end. WHICH SONG is this that is also R. Kelly’s most successful single?
I believe I can fly
[Prompt on “I CAN FLY, and nothing else]
These items are a group of more than a thousand metal plaques and sculptures that decorated the royal palace of the Kingdom of [BLANK] in what is now Nigeria, created from the start of the 13th century by the Edo people. They were looted by the British forces in 1897 and since then they have found their way to different museums in the world with the British museum having the biggest collection of these. What are these stolen items?
Benin Bronzes
[Prompt on Benin]
WHAT CLASSICAL FORM OF UNRHYMED POETRY evolved in the 17th century and is generally written in a single vertical line in 3 sections? Traditionally, poems of this form must contain a ‘cutting word’ at the end of one of the three sections, as well as a ‘season word’ somewhere in the line.
Haiku
WHICH OF ESCOFFIER’S MOTHER SAUCES is a white sauce, based on milk thickened with a white roux?
Bechamel
This political term ultimately derives from the Dutch vrijbuiter (a pillaging and plundering adventurer), though the precise history of its borrowing into English is obscure. WHAT IS THIS TERM that today means “obstructing progress in a legislative assembly”?
Filibuster
