Why patience?

How did the “patience” plant get its name?

A) From its fruit, which explode on contact
B) From its slowness in flowering
C) From its tenacity under poor growing conditions
D) From the name of a botanist’s daughter

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That Gibson girl

In America of the early 1900s, who was “the Gibson girl”?

A) A character in an early series of radio ads for W.B. Gibson Inc.
B) Actress, dancer and singer Amelia Gibson, who vanished in 1905
C) Lola Dufay Gibson, notorious for affairs with prominent officials
D) The ideal of womanhood as portrayed by artist Charles Dana Gibson

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Early whirly

Who was the first person to carry out sustained helicopter flight?

A) Paul Cornu of France
B) Gaetano Crocco of Italy
C) John Newton Williams of the USA
D) Boris Yuriev of Russia

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Posh spice

Though it was once affordable only by the upper crust, today the world’s most popular spice at all levels of society is pepper. Black pepper, which dominates the market, is not just darker but also somewhat stronger than white pepper. A fundamental distinction between the two types is that black pepper:

A) Has been aged from five to ten years before being sold
B) Is a tropical plant; the white only grows in temperate regions
C) Is made from unripe berries, white pepper from ripe ones
D) Is treated with distilled oils to produce a more complex flavor

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Cotard’s syndrome

Cotard’s syndrome is a rare disorder associated with manic-depression, schizophrenia and some other brain illnesdkq023ses. The Cotard’s victim often suffers from a particular delusion, believing that he or she is:

A) Dead
B) Immune to gravity
C) Invisible
D) Unrecognizable

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Mokele-mbembe

Mokele-mbembe is a mysterious creature thought by some to lurk in the jungles of central Africa. Mokele-mbembe most closely resembles:

A) A dinosaur
B) A gorilla
C) A human
D) A shapeless mound

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Morph fun for all

Of the following four words, one applies to flowers, one to rabbits and one to spiders. Then there’s the fourth word. Which is it?

A) Lagomorph
B) Mygalomorph
C) Zigamorph
D) Zygomorph

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Exiguous

What does exiguous mean?

A) Burdensome, inconvenient
B) Cruel, spiteful
C) Small, scanty
D) Unbelievable, absurd

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Movar and shakar

In Scotland, the government appoints one person to be the “Scots Makar”. This post honors the making of:

A) Plaids and tartans
B) Poetry
C) Shortbread
D) Whisky

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Seeker, which and whither

If you were trying to find the antechinus, the quoll, the devil and the dunnart, what and where would you be?

A) An archeologist in Scotland
B) A medieval history scholar in the Vatican
C) A naturalist in Tasmania
D) A systems analyst on the Internet

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