Round 1 written by Sandeep
7 pages total
This round brought to you by the letter “F”:
All answers will begin with the letter F. ±10, no bounce backs
1) A senator from Arkansas set up this scholarship program that encourages intellectuals to travel abroad to spread knowledge.
ANSWER: Fulbright Program
2) Until 1912, the adjective describing this portion of Beijing was accurate, as commoners were not allowed inside.
ANSWER: Forbidden City
3) I Never Loved a Man and Respect are some of this queen of soul’s hits.
ANSWER: Aretha Franklin
4) Petroleum, coal, and natural gas are examples of this energy sources.
ANSWER: Fossil fuels
5) The world’s highest tides can been seen in this Canadian Bay.
ANSWER: Bay of Fundy
6) This independent island nation in the Southern Pacific has its capital at Suva.
ANSWER: Republic of the Fiji Islands
7) She was the goddess of love, fertility, and beauty in Norse mythology.
ANSWER: Frey(j)a (do not accept or prompt on Frei)
8) This unit of measure is equivalent to 200 meters.
ANSWER: Furlong
9) The heavyweight-boxing champion from 1973-1974, he now sells lean mean grilling machines.
ANSWER: George Foreman
10) Freestyle, disc golf, and Ultimate are different games involving this flying disc.
ANSWER: Frisbee
Untimed Individual Round: 5 seconds per answer, +20, no penalties
Team 1:
1. The Earl of Cardigan led this operation that hoped to pierce the Russian frontline. Instead it ended ignominiously as over a third of the men involved were wounded or killed. Identify this ill-advised attack at the Battle of Balaklava that was the inspiration for a famous Tennyson poem.
ANSWER: Charge of the Light Brigade
2. Identify the work from the following line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
ANSWER: Pride and Prejudice
3. He first earned his fame for working on the Manhattan Project. Identify this late Cal Tech physicist who won the 1965 Nobel Prize for his work on quantum electrodynamics.
Answer: Richard Feynman
4. Hercules’ first labor was to slay this beast that could not be killed by any weapon. He picked it up off of the ground, strangled it and made a cloak out of its hide.
ANSWER: Nemean Lion
5. The shimmering light on the canal and the luminous sky are its most striking features. Church spires and other town buildings are finely rendered in the background. Identify this Vermeer cityscape that depicts his hometown.
ANSWER: View of Delft
6. He helped discredit mercantilism and postulated the idea of “the invisible hand” regulating free markets. Identify this Scottish economist who wrote The Wealth of Nations.
ANSWER: Adam Smith
Team 2:
1. Ordered by Robert E. Lee, it aimed to take Seminary Ridge from the Army of the Potomac. Identify this disastrous action that ended up costing the eponymous general three-fourths of his men and forcing the Confederates to retreat to Virginia.
ANSWER: Pickett’s Charge
2. Identify the work from the following line: “Happy families are all alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
ANSWER: Anna Karenina
3. He loathed women who wore earrings and believed he had been contacted by extra-terrestrials. His eccentricities aside, he was one of the pioneers of electrical power. Identify this Croatian-American inventor of the AC generator.
ANSWER: Nikola Tesla
4. Hercules’ second labor was to slay this beast of Lerna. He was unable to do it until Iolaus cauterized its necks after Hercules chopped off its many heads, which had been growing back.
ANSWER: Hydra
5. Its depiction of the city’s hilly terrain is topographically accurate. Dark clouds swirl in the background, giving the work an apocalyptic character. Identify this landscape of El Greco’s adopted home.
ANSWER: View of Toledo
6. He developed the Law of Comparative Advantage – one of the bases of free trade. Identify this Englishman known for his Iron Law of Wages.
ANSWER: David Ricardo
Category Round: Great Men With Beards
Answer the following about men who had beards. ±10, no bounce backs
1) Since 1959, he has been the leader of Cuba.
ANSWER: Fidel Castro
2) Whether or not you believe he sees you when you’re sleeping, etc., little Christian children everywhere find delight in the presents he leaves for them on Christmas.
ANSWER: Santa Claus
3) Probably born around 570 in Mecca, this prophet communicated with Gabriel to reveal the foundation of Islam.
ANSWER: Mohammed
4) Although he failed in his early business and military attempts, he eventually became the 18th U.S. president and led the Union to victory in the Civil War.
ANSWER: Ulysses Simpson Grant
5) English pirate whose real name was Edward Teach.
ANSWER: Blackbeard
6) The foremost Russian composer of the 19th century, created the ballets Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake.
ANSWER: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
7) Whether walking on water or raising the dead, this central figure of Christianity sported a stylish beard.
ANSWER: Jesus
8) Conquistador mistaken for Quetzalcoatl by the Aztecs.
ANSWER: Hernán Cortés
9) This German composer created such works as the Academic Festival Overture and Hungarian Dances.
ANSWER: Johannes Brahms
10) Greek philosopher who taught Plato and was forced to drink hemlock for corrupting the youth of Athens.
ANSWER: Socrates
Timed Individual Round: 90 seconds to answer up to 8 questions per team, 5 seconds to answer after each question. +20, no penalties, +25 for all 8 correct.
Team 1:
1. This wife of Tyndareus had an affair with Zeus while he was in the form of a swan.
ANSWER: Leda
2. This Minnesotan who ran with Geraldine Ferraro won only his home state in the 1984 presidential election.
ANSWER: Walter Mondale
3. It predicts (rather inaccurately) the collapse of capitalism and the rise of a proletarian utopia. This proclamation penned jointly by Marx and Engels declares, “The workers have nothing to lose but their chains.”
ANSWER: The Communist Manifesto
4. Franklin, Crick and Watson won the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for being able to describe the structure of DNA as this type of figure.
ANSWER: Double Helix
5. He converted to Catholicism to ease opposition to his accession to the French throne in 1589. Hailing from Navarre in northern Spain, he was the founder of the Bourbon dynasty.
ANSWER: Henry IV
6. A harsh critic of Victorianism, this Norwegian playwright revolutionized drama with works like Hedda Gabler and A Doll’s House.
ANSWER: Henrik Ibsen
7. It originates in the Ethiopian Highlands and flows 1400 miles until merging with another “colorful” tributary at Khartoum to form the Nile.
ANSWER: Blue Nile
8. To the chagrin of Red Sox Nation, this star shortstop was dealt to the Chicago Cubs at the trade deadline in July.
ANSWER: Nomar Garciaparra
Team 2:
1. This daughter of the river god Inachus was loved by Zeus and changed into a white heifer to protect her from the jealousy of Hera.
ANSWER: Io
2. This Massachusetts governor fared better than Mondale did against Reagan but was still trounced by George H.W. Bush in the 1988 election.
ANSWER: Michael Dukakis
3. It contends that the state must embody the abstract notion of the general will. This Rousseau treatise opens dramatically with “Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains.”
ANSWER: The Social Contract
4. This Dane employed quantum theory to explain the behavior of electrons in his model of the atom.
ANSWER: Niels Bohr
5. He was crowned following the July Revolution in 1830 and reigned until the Revolution of 1848. He was the only member of the Orleans dynasty to rule France.
ANSWER: Louis Philippe
6. Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, and Phantom of the Opera are all musicals composed by this man.
ANSWER: Andrew Lloyd Webber
7. This river that acquires its distinctive turbidity from incompletely decomposed organic matter empties into the Amazon near Manaus.
ANSWER: Negro
8. The 2002 American League MVP, he has been an offensive juggernaut in his first season with the Baltimore Orioles.
ANSWER: Miguel Tejada
Grab Bag Round
± 20, no bounce backs
1. A former sea captain, he wiles away his retirement by recounting his experiences to friends and acquaintances. One of his more intriguing tales concerns his befriending of a young sailor who is unable to overcome the guilt of committing an act of cowardice at sea. Identify this narrator of Lord Jim and The Heart of Darkness.
ANSWER: Marlow
2. In The Last Samurai, advisors and Western businessmen are shown exploiting his youth and inexperience. During his reign, Japan began to aggressively modernize in order to resist foreign domination. Name this Japanese emperor who was “restored” to the throne in 1868.
ANSWER: Meiji (Prince Matsuhito)
3. Influenced by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, he frequently addressed the conflict between intellect and sexuality. He first earned widespread recognition with his 1904 novel, Buddenbrooks. Identify this German author, the winner of the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature, who wrote Death in Venice and The Magic Mountain.
ANSWER: Thomas Mann
4. Gabon is a member of it while Ecuador was until 1992. Serving as its head, Sheikh Yamani was instrumental in bringing this group worldwide prominence in the 1970s. Name this cartel of oil producing nations that includes Iran and Saudi Arabia.
ANSWER: OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries)
5. Alluding to the importance of camaraderie and courage, the victorious commander stated it “had been won on the playing fields of Eton.” Name this 1815 battle occurring in Belgium that brought about Napoleon’s political demise.
ANSWER: Waterloo
6. He shared the Nobel Prize with biologists Howard Florey and Ernst Chain in 1945. He made his most famous finding while studying the influenza virus in 1928. Name this Scottish discoverer of penicillin.
ANSWER: Sir Alexander Fleming
7. Dan Aykroyd parodied her warbling voice and zestfulness in a famous Saturday Night Live sketch. She found her life’s calling while dining in a restaurant in Rouen in 1948. Name this recently deceased television chef who brought French cuisine to the masses.
ANSWER: Julia Child
8. The Treaty of Utrecht ended it in 1714 after thirteen years of fighting across Western Europe. Name this war that was precipitated when Louis XIV tried to install his nephew on the throne of France’s southern neighbor – not Andorra.
ANSWER: War of the Spanish Succession
9. Based on Titian’s Venus of Urbino, it provoked public outrage when first exhibited in 1865 because of its frank depiction of a nude woman and her black maid. Identify this Manet work whose titular subject may have been modeled on courtesan Victoria Meurent.
ANSWER: Olympia
10. Their debut album, Songs About Jane, was released in June 2002. The video for their most recent single features lead singer, Adam Levine, spurning his girlfriend to make out with her mother. Name this band whose hits include Harder to Breathe and This Love.
ANSWER: Maroon 5
11. In August, he returned to Iraq from the UK where he had undergone treatment for a heart ailment. He is seen as a moderate voice in the Shia community and a bulwark against the growing clout of Moqtada al-Sadr. Identify this cleric who recently brokered a truce between American forces and the Mahdi Army in the city of Najaf.
ANSWER: Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani
12. Her son and heir apparent, Sanjay, died in a plane crash in 1982. While campaigning near Madras in 1991, her younger son, Rajiv, was killed by a suicide bomber. Name this first female prime minister of India who herself was assassinated in 1984.
ANSWER: Indira Gandhi
13. In his most ambitious creation, he sought to present a panoramic view of French society from the time of the Revolution to his own day. Pere Goriot and Eugenie Grandet are two of his most notable works. Identify this nineteenth century French author who wrote the mammoth novel cycle, La Comedie Humaine.
ANSWER: Honore de Balzac
14. It is usually attributed to unchecked growth in a nation’s money supply and can result in the complete breakdown of an economic system. Weimar Germany experienced one of the most severe versions of it in the early 1920s, as money would lose its value in a matter of hours. Name this economic phenomenon in which prices increase 50% or more each month.
ANSWER: Hyperinflation
15. He and his family converted to Anglicanism in 1817 after his father had a bitter quarrel with a London synagogue. Although a noted writer, he is better remembered for his rivalry with Liberal Party leader William Gladstone and purchasing the Suez Canal in 1875. Name this mid-19th century British prime minister nicknamed “Dizzy.”
ANSWER: Benjamin Disraeli
16. A staunch conservative, he often clashed with liberal compatriot Ivan Turgenev. His four years of imprisonment in Siberia exposed him to the workings of the criminal mind and greatly influenced his writings, best seen in the character of Raskolnikov. Identify this author of The Idiot and Crime and Punishment.
ANSWER: Fyodor Dostoevsky
17. His offensive numbers over his first four seasons are among the best in baseball history. He was named National League Rookie of the Year in 2001 and finished second in MVP voting in 2003. Identify this sensational St. Louis Cardinals first baseman nicknamed “Phat Albert.”
ANSWER: Albert Pujols