A quiz…

Posted on by April 2, 2020

Ask family members, friends and students to take this fun closed-book, closed-computer quiz:

  1. How many members in SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the US)?
  2. Of these, how many are female?
  3. Name just ONE female SCOTUS member.
  4. Popocatépetl is an active volcano in which country?
  5. Which historic SCOTUS decision affirmed a citizen’s rights under the Fifth Amendment?
  6. Typically, there are how many members in the US Senate?
  7. How many senators may each state send to the US senate?
  8. Which is the westernmost state in the Union?
  9. Which is the easternmost state in the Union?
  10. Which is the southernmost state in the Union?
  11. Which is the northernmost state in the Union?
  12. Which is the highest peak in the Americas?
  13. What countries share the island of Tierra del Fuego?
  14. The Second Amendment does what concerning the right to keep and bear arms?
  15. What is the longest river in the Continental USA?
  16. What is the southernmost country in Central America?
  17. The former Dutch Guiana is now:
  18. The former British Honduras is now:
  19. Which is longer: a mile or a kilometer?
  20. The language of Brazil is:
  21. An isosceles triangle has how many equal sides?
  22. Caesar’s expression, VENI, VIDI, VINCI means what?
  23. What poet wrote,”Quoth the Raven, Nevermore?”
  24. Samuel Langhorne Clemens is better known by this name.
  25. This person inspired Britons to have hope during World War- 2.
  26. Our WW-2 enemy, the Axis, was composed of which countries?
  27. The Bataan Death March occurred in which country?
  28. S. Marines hoisted Old Glory on Mount Suribachi on which island?
  29. This Norwegian, whose name is a synonym for “traitor” was a Nazi collaborator
  30. Who were the principal victims of the Holocaust?
  31. On 14 May 1948, this Middle East land became a country.
  32. This Union general devastated Georgia during the Civil War.
  33. Mexican General Santa Anna laid siege to this western stronghold.
  34. Russia sold this land to the USA.
  35. The 38th Parallel divides these two countries.
  36. Name the Vice-President of the USA.
  37. This CIA U-2 pilot was shot down and captured by the Soviets.
  38. The Tenth Amendment affirms this right of the individual states of the Union.
  39. Which was the last state admitted to the Union?
  40. Name one country in the former French Indo-China.
  41. The Battle of the Bulge took place in which country?
  42. This US president died in office in 1945.
  43. The Dewey Decimal System controlled what?
  44. What did Charles Lindbergh accomplish?
  45. Which city was the USA’s first capital?
  46. What criminal charges were filed against gangster Al Capone?
  47. Ioseb  Vissarionovich  Dzhugashvilii  was known by which nickname?
  48. How many degrees does the Earth rotate per hour?
  49. Who wrote Atlas Shrugged?
  50. Who falsely claimed to have created the Internet?

Answers below the fold…

ANSWERS

  1. Nine
  2. Three
  3. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan (Anyone responding “Judge Judy” fails the entire quiz!)
  4. México
  5. Miranda Decision
  6. One hundred
  7. Two
  8. Alaska
  9. Maine
  • Hawaii
  • Alaska
  • Aconcagua, on the Argentina/Chile border
  • Argentina and Chile
  • It does not grant, but rather AFFIRMS this preexistent right
  • The Missouri
  • Panamá
  • Suriname
  • Belize
  • Mile
  • Potuguese
  • Two
  • “I came, I saw, I conquered”
  • Edgar Allan Poe
  • Mark Twain
  • Winston S. Churchill
  • Germany, Italy, Japan
  • The Philippines
  • Iwo Jima (Semper Fidelis!)
  • Quisling
  • The Jews of Europe
  • Israel
  • William Tecumseh Sherman
  • The Alamo
  • Alaska
  • Republic of Korea (south) and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (north)
  • Mike Pence
  • Francis Gary Powers
  • All rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution
  • Hawaii
  • Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia
  • Belgium
  • FDR
  • Library shelves
  • First solo flight across Atlantic Ocean
  • Philadelphia
  • Tax evasion
  • Stalin
  • Fifteen
  • Ayn Rand
  • Al Gore

Comments

A quiz… — 34 Comments

  1. A case can be made that Alaska, since it straddles the International Date Line, is also the easternmost state.

    Good quiz!

  2. Well,now I feel stupid! 🙂

    I’m surprised at the holes in my knowledge while some of the questions made me say “Um, doesn’t everyone know this one?”.

    Thanks, ONFO. Maybe I’ll print out the quiz and take it to work. Maybe not,it won’t lead to a more harmonious working environment. At least I’m working!

  3. McC- LOL, that is a point that has been argued over more than once!

    Robert- Ohhh… Maybe not… 🙂

  4. If Mike Pence is President Pro Tem of the senate, wouldn’t that make the total count 101? They didn’t ask how many senators, but how many “members” of the senate. Prove me wrong.

  8. I knew quite a few of them as well, a passing score of 82. Still should have known more – more studying required !!

    Thanks for quiz – quite a bit of general world information.

  9. I missed four. No, I’m not telling which four!

    Wasn’t New York briefly the Capital prior to Philadelphia? I know Washington took the oath of office there as the first President under the Constitution.

  10. 96 for me. I missed 3 of the first 12, and then got them all except for believing that the Battle of the Bulge was in Germany.

    Also, the fully-correct answer for #21 is that an isosceles triangle has AT LEAST two sides of the same length. [An equilateral triangle is considered to be isosceles as well, like a square is also a type of rectangle.]

  11. Pleasantly not surprised over my answers.

    As to any questions dealing with Central America, my answer will always be, “Other than the Panama Canal, which should never have been given away, who cares about Central America as long as they all stay on their side of our border (grumble, grumble, Carter, grumble, grumble…)”

    • Hear, hear!

      And who would ever believe that there would be a living ex-president to rival Carter?

      • Woodrow Wilson, LBJ and FDR were happy to pass the mantle of WPE, first to Carter, then to He Who Won’t be Named but was the Executive Office version of Kapernick…

    • While I’m no fan of Jimmy ‘never met a dictator I didn’t like’ Carter, the decision to allow the Panama Canal to revert to Panama had some points in its favor;

      1) The Canal, as it existed at the time, could not accommodate full sized Carriers, and thus had been of considerably less strategic importance since WWII.

      2) The Canal itself badly needed to be upgraded. While this may or may not have occurred to Carter, if we still held it, we would have had to do the upgrade, which would have been hellishly expensive even if being done by the Feds didn’t drive the cost up. As matters stand, the upgrade was done with investor money.

      Carter was a jackass. OTOH, he also never caught a break. The Democrats in Congress considered him a hick, and so he had no allies in the Legislature (a major argument, in my POV, against ever electing a Third Party President). And the story about the rabbit was told by Urban Liberal Reporters who had no grasp of just how much a farmer is likely to fear rabies hitting his livestock.

      The internet informs me that rabbits doing not carry rabies. I’ll bet dollars to donuts no farmer is willing to take the chance.

  13. Hey Old NFO;

    I did good, not perfect, and I did paraphrase Caesar “I came, I saw, I kicked its ass…”, LOL

  14. 1 mile is 1.6 kilometers, should have figured you would slip a trick question in there.

    lol

  15. Scored a 92; should have been a 96, but flipped a coin on one “it’s either/or”, and guessed the wrong one.

    Good job, though; thanks!

  17. Alaska can be considered the Eastern most state, not because of the international date line. It is because part of the Aleutian Islands chain, including Attu, Kiska, and Amchitka, all of which are part of the state of Alaska, are in the eastern longitudes, i.e. on the other side of longitude 180.

    Also, the answer to question #41, in which country did the Battle of the Bulge take place, should also include Luxembourg.

  20. Do I get extra credit for knowing all three names the U-2 pilot?
    BTW, got all the other answers as well … You misidentified Philadelphia as the first capitol. NYC was first. I looked it up AFTER I saw Philly.

    • How many people would know him by any other name?

      I still figure he got a raw deal.

  21. That Mexican volcano’s an issue. Imagine the impact on the former capital of the Aztec empire if it blew… which it has done, repeatedly, and looks set to do again.

    You’d think people wouldn’t build cities under great big volcanoes but they do, oddly. Then again, we outsourced all our manufacturing to China. So.

  23. We weren’t the United States until the Constitution was ratified, right? So New York was the first capital of the USA.

    Nice quiz!

  24. I bet all of us twenty-nine year olds got all but a few of these right.
    They used to to US Government and Civics in high school.
    And history was not something made up by Howard Zinn.

  25. Kilometers are definitely longer.

    The Army made me walk kilometers, those were long.

    Driving miles, short.

    Kilometers are longer…

    🙂