New Scaratings

15 Questions, 1000 Points each, Points decrease rapidly with time and 3 Clues:

1. Born in Quebec in 1880, Mikall Sennett went on to become one of the world's most famous:___________________.
[Choices: Architect, Movie directors, Inventors, Surgeons, Circus performers]

2. The leaves of this herb are also known as cilantro:__________________.
[Choices: Coriander, Bay leaf, Basil, Dill, Mint]

3. Herman McNeile created the character of Hugh Drummond, better known as _______________ Drummond.
[Choices: Popeye, Diamond, Mayday, Bulldog, Pappy]

4. What was once South West Africa is now:________________.
[Choices: Kenya, Namibia, Eritrea, Mozambique, Ghana]

5. Future Supreme Court judge Louis Brandeis wrote this famous 1890 essay:______________________.
[Choices: Common Sense, Civil Rights, The Right to Privacy, The Age of Reason, The Rights of Man]

6. Who composed the six Brandenburg Concertos?________________.
[Choices: Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Berlioz, Brahms]

7. What group was commanded by Leonard Wood, later Governor General of the Philippines?_________________.
[Choices: Flying Tigers, Texas Rangers, Untouchables, Red Brigade, Rough Riders]

8. In standard conditions, the lightest metal and the lightest chemical solid element is:_________________.
[Choices: Platinum, Lithium, Helium, Zircon, Zinc]

9. Lome, a city of more than 700,000 people, serves as this country's capital:_________________.
[Choices: Sri Lanka, Paraguay, Guyana, Togo, Madagascar]

10. Despite their name, cuttlefish are not fish but are:__________________.
[Choices: Arachnids, Reptiles, Fungi, Insects, Mollusks]

11. The election of Pope Urban VI in 1378 sparked the:__________________.
[Choices: Western Schism, Eastern Divide, Central Fragmentation, Northern Alliance, Southern League]

12. Soteriology is a study that belongs to this discipline:___________________.
[Choices: Agriculture, Paleontology, Theology, Geology, Oceanography]

13. In Homer's epic poem "The Iliad", who leads the Greek forces in the Trojan War?_________________.
[Hector, Paris, Agamemnon, Horace, Achilles]

14. Great Britain's Nik Cohn is a founding father of this type of writing:_________________.
[Choices: Fake news, Self-help, Blogging, Rock criticism, Gonzo journalism]

15. The murder of Nastasya Fillipnova causes great problems for this literary character:_____________________.
[Choices: Hans Castorp, Pierre Bezukhov, Prince Myshkin, Yuri Zhivago, Sergeant Prishibeyev]




Answers:

1. Movie director [I (REACH, LESTER) pre-called this one (Mack Sennett); see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_Sennett ]

2. Coriander [Richard (ACE) and Sue (SWIFT) pre-called this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriander ]

3. Bulldog [I pre-called this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldog_Drummond ]

4. Namibia [I pre-called this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namibia ]

5. The Right to Privacy [Half of us at Buster's Bar, Ottawa ON quickly deduced this by eliminating the other Choices; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right ... y_(article) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Brandeis ]

6. Bach [I pre-called this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_Concertos . For the 3rd movement of Concerto No. 2, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY6HNGUy-SM (2:43). For Concerto No. 3 (0:08-5:38, 5:42-5:53, 5:54-10:30), see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLj_gMBqHX8 . After the Answer was revealed, the Quizmaster noted "Regarded as masterpieces, they are named after the ruler who commissioned [sic] them." This is not entirely accurate, if a commission means "ordered for pay". According to http://www.classicalnotes.net/classics2 ... nburg.html , "Bach intended the Brandenburgs as his resume for a new job", and so carefully composed six diverse concerti featuring a variety of different combinations of instruments, along with a grovelling written introduction. Bach failed to get the job.]

7. Rough Riders [Dave (as YELDOR) got all 1000 Points for this one, but I wrongly called for "Flying Tigers" since the Rough Riders were associated with Teddy Roosevelt and San Juan Hill in Cuba. But Leonard Wood also commanded the Rough Riders; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_Riders . Afterwards, Dave explained that the Flying Tigers were led by Chennault, and I agreed (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Tigers ), but Gregory "Pappy" Boyington was commander of the "Black Sheep" Squadron, etc., so the best bet should have been to split (as Dave did, as TULADI).]

8. Lithium [I pre-called this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium . Dave noted that the other Choices were gases, and so could have been eliminated that way. OTOH the intro to the Question "In standard conditions" could have been there to head off nit-pickers who might have argued that under extreme pressure, the center of the planet Jupiter is thought to be metallic hydrogen which could be less dense than lithium at the Earth's surface. When the nuclei of many, many hydrogen atoms (i.e. protons) are forced very close together the electrons no longer orbit individual protons, but are delocalized over the entire array of protons (half-filling a conduction band of very closely spaced quantum energy levels, making the solid metallic in properties).]

9. Togo [Phil (BSLXPN) pre-called this first; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Togo ]

10. Mollusks [I called this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuttlefish ]

11. Western Schism [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Schism ]

12. Theology [We split guesses, with LESTER, ACE, YELDOR, TULADI and SPRAJO (Myfanwy) getting most of the Points on this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soteriology ]

13. Agamemnon [I first pre-called "Achilles" who led the Greeks in the final man-to-man battle against Hector, but then quickly corrected the call to "Agamemnon", the overall commander; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agamemnon . I never saw that the 5th Choice listed was Achilles, arguably the "leader" of the Greeks.]

14. Rock criticism [We all guessed wrong on this one, going for the trendy "Blogging" or "Fake news"; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nik_Cohn ]

15. Prince Myshkin [We guessed wrong on this one, a good Question hard to quickly Google search at Borg bars. Congrats to Players like Neil (LETHE) at Whispers in Ottawa ON who, with 13,967 Points, must have known this. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Idiot . Hans Castorp is from Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Mountain ). Pierre Bezukhov is from "War and Peace" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bezukhov ). Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago was not a Contender; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Zhivago . Sergeant Prishibeyev is from a short story by Chekhov; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_Prishibeyev . In the Question, "Fillipnova" should have been "Filippovna", but the spelling difference should not have been a game changer.]

In the Choices for Q8, only "Helium" was a gas; the other Choices except for Lithium were heavier metals that could be easily eliminated.

In the Choices for Q8, Zircon is not an element, but the mineral zircon (zirconium silicate, ZrSiO4) contains the transition metal zirconium. I never bothered to read the other Choices but Lithium.