Etruscan enigma

The Etruscans were a people of ancient Europe whose civilization was influential for much of the millennium preceding the Christian era. Their homeland of Etruria lay within the borders of which modern country?

A) Franc
B) Germany
C) Italy
D) Spain

Click here to check your answer on our site.

Core belief

How fast does the Earth’s core rotate relative to its outer layers?

A) At the same speed
B) Faster
C) Slower
D) Sometimes faster, sometimes slower

Click here to check your answer on our site.

Legacy

A distinctive type of archeological curiosity often found in Ireland is:

A) Ancestors arranged in alcoves
B) Butter buried in bogs
C) Cats caged in caves
D) Drums deployed in dungeons

Click here to check your answer on our site.

RGB

The pigments used by painters often have exotic names like egyptian blue, cadmium orange, and orpiment. Which of the following choices lists red, green and blue pigments, in that order?

A) Smalt, verdigris, vermilion
B) Verdigris, madder lake, smalt
C) Vermilion, viridian, ultramarine
D) Viridian, madder lake, ultramarine

Click here to check your answer on our site.

The greatest composer

Ludwig van Beethoven declared in 1806 that another composer of his acquaintance was the greatest of any then living. Which of his contemporaries had impressed him so deeply?

A) Luigi Cherubini
B) Franz Josef Haydn
C) Johann Nepomuk Hummel
D) Franz Liszt

Click here to check your answer on our site.

The birth of plywood

When was plywood invented?

A) 3500 BC
B) 200 AD
C) 675 AD
D) 1835 AD

Click here to check your answer on our site.

Verse imperial

Which British writer was known as the “poet of Empire”?

A) W.H. Auden
B) Robert Browning
C) Rudyard Kipling
D) Stephen Spender

Click here to check your answer on our site.

Jenny Who?

What is a Jenny Haniver?

A) A hat with detachable ear-flaps
B) A long, pointless story
C) A sideshow monster
D) A volunteer nurse

Click here to check your answer on our site.

Pica and not pica

Which of the following four definitions does not apply to the word “pica”?

A) Ornithology: The magpie
B) Osteology: An abnormal spur on a neck vertebra
C) Printing: A measure of type size
D) Psychology: A compulsion to eat non-food substances

Click here to check your answer on our site.

Counting gas particles with Avogadro

The name of physicist Amedeo Avogadro (1776-1856) is forever associated with “Avogadro’s number”, which arose from his famous hypothesis that, given equal conditions of temperature and pressure, the number of atoms or molecules in equal volumes of different gases is:

A) The same
B) Proportional to the atomic weights of the gases
C) Inversely proportional to the atomic weights of the gases
D) Dependent on the square root of the relative energy flux

Click here to check your answer on our site.