New Scaratings

15 Questions, 1000 Points each, Points decrease rapidly from 4 to 20 seconds after appearance of Question & 5 Choices, and with 3 Clues:

1. Samarkand, one of the world's oldest cities, is located in what is now:__________________________.
[Choices: Indonesia, Easter Island, Ghana, Uzbekistan, Cambodia ]

2. According to Greek myth, ___________________ and his wife were the only mortals who survived the deluge.
[Choices: Deucalion, Pygmalion, Midas, Odysseus, Uranus ]

3. Exactly how many teaspoons are in a tablespoon in the United States?_____________
[Choices: Three, Five, Four, Six, Two ]

4. In 1890, a famous group of Frenchmen took the name "NABI". Who were they?___________________________
[Choices: Painters, Protestants, Royal family members, Socialists, Philosophers ]

5. The proboscis monkey can be found in the wild only in:_____________________.
[Choices: Aruba, Christmas Island, Borneo, Tahiti, Madagascar ]

6. Who was the British Commander in Chief at the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill?______________________
[Choices: Benjamin Disraeli, Walter Raleigh, Thomas Gage, Robert Baden-Powell, William Gladstone ]

7. What suffix is used to refer specifically to a woman performing a particular function?__________________
[Choices: -trix, -escent, -gram, -ferrous, -tude ]

8. "The Hebrides" is a concert overture published in 1833 by:_________________________.
[Choices: Igor Stravinsky, Benjamin Britten, Felix Mendelssohn, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy ]

9. A group of bright stars found in the constellation Taurus is called the:_____________________.
[Choices: Seven Sisters, Hunting Dog, Aurora Borealis, Southern Cross, Big Dipper ]

10. It has a powerful political party called the Kuomintang:_____________________.
[Choices: Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, India, Australia ]

11. "Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?..." is the last line from:_____________________.
[Choices: Song of Solomon, East of Eden, Catch-22, War and Peace, Invisible Man ]

12. The two main classes of electronic oscillators are harmonic and:______________________.
[Choices: Relaxation, Temptation, Induction, Galvinization, Amplification ]

13. Who once wrote an opera scored for 24 performers and 12 randomly tuned radios?_______________________
[Choices: Richard Wagner, Arnold Schoenberg, Erik Satie, John Cage, David Byrne ]

14. In geometry, this word refers to the set of all points which satisfy a given condition:______________________.
[Choices: Locus, Denominator, Plane, Convex, Null set ]

15. What noted American poet committed suicide by jumping from a ship in 1932?___________________
[Choices: Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Arthur Rimbaud, T.S. Eliot, Hart Crane ]






Answers:

1. Uzbekistan [I (REACH) at Whispers Bar, Ottawa ON pre-called "one of the -stans"; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samarkand . Phil (BSLXPN) mentioned "15 [sic] Days in the Samarkand Desert with the Duchess of Kent" and that it's in the Monty Python Bookstore skit (see 15. Bookshop at https://www.intriguing.com/mp/_scripts/contobli.php ). ]

2. Deucalion [I called this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deucalion . ]

3. Three [Myfanwy (SPRAJO) and others pre-called this one; see https://downshiftology.com/how-many-tea ... ablespoon/ ]

4. Painters [Sue (SWIFT) and Patrick (MRRED) got 1000 Points for this one, but the rest of us lost a few Points on a wrong guess for "Philosophers" until Myfanwy suggested "Painters"; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Nabis ]

5. Borneo [Chris (CEEZED) or Patrick (MRRED) called this one, saving us from my pre-call for "Americas" (I was confused with howler monkeys, which are New World monkeys) and Myfanwy's pre-call for Madagascar; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proboscis_monkey ]

6. Thomas Gage [We didn't know this, but easily eliminated all the other Choices; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gage and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bunker_Hill . Several of us wondered if Gagetown (CFB Gagetown is nearby ) was named after Thomas Gage, but I said I didn't think so. I was wrong. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFB_Gagetown and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gagetown,_New_Brunswick ]

7. -trix [Jean (LESTER) pre-called this one; see https://www.dictionary.com/browse/-trix and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominatrix ]

8. Mendelssohn [I pre-called this one; see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcogD-hHEYs and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hebrides_(overture) . All the other composers were from the 20th Century or very late 19th Century (Debussy). Fans of Looney Tunes cartoons from 1943 will know the Overture from the Mynah bird (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67dQ4Whk-7s ). ]

9. Seven Sisters [I pre-called "the Pleiades", and then called for "Seven Sisters" when the Choices appeared; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades . Jean mentioned that in Japanese, they are called "Subaru", explaining why there are 6 stars in the company's logo (one of the 7 Sisters is not easily seen); see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subaru . It takes exceptionally clear, Moonless night skies to see all 7 (or more) stars of the Open Cluster with the naked eye; normally, only 5 are easily seen.]

10. Taiwan [Jean pre-called "Chiang Kai-shek", and then "Taiwan" when the Choices appeared. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek .]

11. Invisible Man [see the end of "Plot summary" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Man . I guessed this, and explained that African-American author Ralph Ellison's main point was that blacks were not seen as full, equal human beings, but as part of the furniture or surroundings, hence, invisible. ]

12. Relaxation [We guessed "Induction" or "Amplification" because they are words used in electronics, but we really had no clue; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_oscillator ]

13. John Cage [Phil called this first, I think. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0BNsBlzQII . I then ranted on and on about the intellectual elite pretending to like this stuff, when in fact very few actually buy CDs or DVDs of Cage's works (see recordings available for purchase at http://www.arkivmusic.com ). I actually bought a CD of Cage's "Three Dances (1945) for prepared pianos", and I liked it because it still had a certain amount of musicality. But then Cage got sucked into the abyss of "conceptual art", where ideas, concepts, relativism and logic trump emotional appeal, so the works are now mostly confined to museums, graduate schools, and the obligatory "modern" or "avant garde" performances of "con artists" at symphonic concerts. OK, logically you can say Cage's " 4'33" " is as valid a work of art in the history of music as a Beethoven piano sonata (for who is to judge?), but having made this point, can you build on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTEFKFiXSx4 ? Ditto for Arnold Schoenberg, whose early, moody, dark "Verklarte Nacht" (Transfigured Night) appeals to the emotions as well as logic (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h5Xc-rUef4 ); for the logic of atonality, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_CGHbd_rhg (but do you really like the examples played?). Not that I have anything against all modern compositions: try Henryk Gorecki's Symphony No. 3 from 1976 (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN2DiY5OXF4 for the 2nd movement, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7vQ6ztojNQ for the 3rd movement) or Arvo Part's "Spiegel im Spiegel" (Mirrors in the Mirror) from 1978 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYypmgIYOVQ or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZe3mXlnfNc for two different tempi, played with different instruments.]

14. Locus [I called this one; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locus_(mathematics) ]

15. Hart Crane [I guessed this by eliminating the other Choices; see the section "Death" at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hart_Crane ]