New Scaratings

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

1. Lake Nakuru National Park, known for its birdlife, is in this African country:_________________________.
[Choices: Kenya, Angola, Mali, Senegal, Libya ]

2. Thornfield Hall is a setting in this classic novel:_______________________________.
[Choices: Vanity Fair, Middlemarch, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations ]

3. Marchantia is an Order of ____________________ commonly found on moist clay or silty soils.
[Choices: Mollusks, Nematodes, Fairy shrimp, Cetaceans, Liverworts ]

4. Van Diemen's Land was the old name for this island:_________________________.
[Choices: Greenland, Hawaii, Madagascar, Jamaica, Tasmania ]

5. "Love and Happiness" and "Let's Stay Together" are two of his most recognizable songs:_____________________________.
[Choices: Al Green, David Ruffin, Smokey Robinson, Lionel Ritchie, Isaac Hayes ]

6. President Ulysses S. Grant was reelected in 1872 by beating this Democratic candidate:________________________.
[Choices: Jefferson Davis, Stephen Douglas, Horace Greeley, Henry Clay, Grover Cleveland ]

7. Who composed "Symphonie fantastique" in 1830?_________________________
[Choices: Henry Purcell, Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saens, Francois Mitterrand ]

8. If you sail due North from the island of Malta, you'll run smack dab into:_______________________.
[Choices: Majorca, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Cyprus ]

9. Callimachus of Cyrene was one of the earliest _______________________ of the Western world.
[Choices: Poet-critics, Business tycoons, Terrorists, Geographers, Big game hunters ]

10. A character is killed and devoured by a mob of starving urchins in this Tennessee Williams play:____________________________.
[Choices: Suddenly Last Summer, Sweet Bird of Youth, Orpheus Descending, The Glass Menagerie, The Rose Tattoo ]

11. China's _________________ Dynasty came to an end in 1279 when it was conquered by Kublai Khan.
[Choices: Fong, Wong, Long, Song, Pong ]

12. Which law states that if the temperature of a gas is kept constant, its volume will vary?________________________
[Choices: Boyle's Law, Gay-Lussac's Law, Murphy's Law, Blue's Law, Waal's Law ]

13. "Copula" is a term in:_________________________.
[Choices: Architecture, Finance, Astronomy, Grammar, Botany ]

14. Best known for his operettas, he also wrote "Onward Christian Soldiers":__________________________.
[Choices: Sigmund Romberg, Stephen Foster, John Philip Sousa, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Victor Herbert ]

15. The Meteora is a rock formation in ______________________ that is home to a large complex of monasteries.
[Choices: Tibet, Honduras, Algeria, Greece, Japan ]






Answers:

1. Kenya [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Nakuru ]

2. Jane Eyre [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Eyre ]

3. Liverworts [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marchantiophyta ]

4. Tasmania [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmania ]

5. Al Green [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Green , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsU6_eSG4k4 , and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COiIC3A0ROM ]

6. Horace Greeley [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1872_Unit ... l_election ; note that Greeley was the Liberal Republican candidate, not Democratic ]

7. Hector Berlioz [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphonie_fantastique and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK6iAxe0oEc (if you have never listened to this work, start with the 2nd, 4th & 5th movements)]

8. Sicily [see the map at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Sea ]

9. Poet-critic [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callimachus ]

10. Suddenly Last Summer [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suddenly_ ... mmer_(film) ]

11. Song [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_dynasty ]

12. Boyle's Law [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyle's_law ; this is the right answer if pressure varies. But the Ideal Gas Equation is PV = nRT, so V= nRT/P , which means that if temperature and pressure are constant, then volume varies as n, the number of moles (molecules), since R is a constant (the Ideal Gas Constant). I was slightly delayed in answering this poorly worded Question.]

13. Grammar [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copula_(linguistics) ]

14. Sir Arthur Sullivan [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onward,_C ... n_Soldiers and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhiHoqp0neU ]

15. Greece [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteora ]

Grateful as always to REACH for his Recaps, complete with Wikipedia references. I spend a lot of time on Wikipedia, and it's grown over the years to be very trustworthy. But every once in awhile, some trivial error still creeps in. This from the New Yorker Magazine (Oct 14, 2019):

"The page for (Edna) O'Brien on the Web site of her London literary agent describes her as the winner, in 1962, of the Kingsley Amis Award. For decades, this accolade has been noted by O'Brien's publishers, by journalists and academics, and by the universities where she has taught. A review of a stage adaptation of 'The Country Girls' referred to 'the prestigious Kingsley Amis Award.'

"There isn't, and never has been, a Kingsley Amis Award. In 1962, Amis, though established, was near the start of his career, and better known for disliking things than for liking them. But...the London Observer asked readers about books they'd enjoyed that year, and Amis praised 'The Country Girls' for its 'unphony charm and unlaborious originality. For this, he wrote, it 'wins my personal first-novel prize of the year.'

"It's not clear how a kind remark in a Sunday paper took on a sixty-year life as a formal honor..."

Sure enough, as of this writing, the ephemeral award is listed on Edna O'Brien's Wikipedia page.