This general quiz document contains multiple choice and fill in the blank questions on topics ranging from literature to history to pop culture. It tests knowledge of concepts like found art, literary devices, scientific discoveries, and famous people and their contributions. The questions are part of a quiz being attempted by Harini Lakshminarayanan.

1. General Quiz
An attempt by:
Harini Lakshminarayanan

2. "Si non oscillas, noli tintinarre" meaning "If you do
not swing do not ring"
g g
Sylvilagus palustris ________

3. Hefneris

4. X is an example of what is termed as “found art”
or “readymades”. Y submitted X to the Society
of Independent Artists exhibit in 1917. Artworks
in the Independent Artists shows were not
selected by jury, and all pieces submitted were
displayed. However, the show committee
insisted that X was not art, and rejected it from
the show. This caused an uproar and Y to resign
from the board of the Independent Artists

5. Duchamp’s Fountain

6. Oxford dictionary meaning : Expressing
frustration at the realization that things have
turned out badly or not as planned, or that one
has just said or done something foolish. Also
(usu.
(usu mildly derogatory): implying that another
person has said or done something foolish. X
utters it when he injures himself, realizes that he
has d
h done something stupid, or when something
hi id h hi
bad has happened or is about to happen to him.
During the voice recording session for a Tracey
Ullman Show short, X was required to utter
what was written in the script as an "annoyed
grunt.” X and the word.. simple
” d h d i l

7. Doh!! Homer Simpson
p

8. “Now I shall go to sleep. Goodnight.”
Last words of ?? Lord Byron

9. _______ is a colloquial term for a planet that
falls within a star's habitable zone often
star s zone,
specifically used for planets close to the size of
Earth. They are of key interest to researchers
looking either f
l ki ih for existing ( d possibly
i i (and ibl
intelligent) life or for future homes for the
human race, one that is neither too close nor too
far from a star to rule out life. The name arises
from the fact that they’re not extreme (large or
small, h t or cold, etc.), and settling on th one
ll hot ld t ) d ttli the
in the middle, which is "just right". Goldilocks
p
planet

11. • The day the music died . Don McClean
American Pie
A i Pi

12. ______ describes a phenomenon seen in nearly every
phenomenon—seen
species in which it has been tested, whereby males show
continuously high sexual performance given the
introduction of new receptive partners The term comes
partners.
from an old joke, according to which U.S. President
_____ and his wife allegedly visited a poultry farm.
During the tour, Mrs. _____ inquired of the farmer how
g q
his farm managed to produce so many fertile eggs with
such a small number of roosters. The farmer proudly
explained that his roosters performed their duty dozens of
times each day
day.
"Perhaps you could point that out to Mr. _____,"
pointedly replied the First Lady.
The President overhearing the remark asked the farmer
President, remark, farmer,
"Does each rooster service the same hen each time?"
"No," replied the farmer, "there are many hens for each
rooster.
rooster "
"Perhaps you could point that out to Mrs. _____," replied
the President. Coolidge effect

13. X, delivered at 11:15 p.m. in the city of Malaga,
October 25, 1881, came out stillborn. He did not
breathe; neither did he cry. The midwife gave up
cry
and turned to the mother. If it had not been for
the presence of his uncle, Dr. Salvador Ruiz, the
infant might never h
i f i h have come to lif Don
life.
Salvador, however, leaned over the stillbirth and
exhaled cigar smoke into its nostrils X stirred X
nostrils. stirred.
screamed. A genius came to life. His first breath
must have entered on a rush of smoke, searing to
the th t
th throat, scorching t th lungs, and l d with
hi to the l d laced ith
the stimulants of nicotine. It is not unfair to say
that the harsh spirit of tobacco is seldom absent
from his work.

14. “Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.”

15. The ______ f
h family were prominent members of
l b f
Quakers. As nonconformists they were not
permitted to enter Universities hence they
Universities,
concentrated on Business and Social reforms. In
1831 a small factory, an old malt house in
Crooked Lane, Birmingham, was rented by John
______ and he started manufacturing Cocoa as
an alternative to Alcohol, as he thought that it
was one of the causes of poverty and misery
among th working classes. C db
the ki l Cadbury

16. During the middle ages, French would decide
whether a person was refined or not b smelling
h h fi d by lli
him or her. Anyone who gave off “good air” was
presumed healthier and happier. Which word
happier
originates from this? Debonair

17. The 4 people here are Redbeard Eric
Redbeard,
Lerouge, Tripod and Baba.

18. Parodies of pirates in Asterix :
1. Barbe rouge ( Redbeard)
2.
2 Triple Patte (Tripod)
3. Baba (Baba)
4. Erix (Eric)
The reason behind this
parody is that Jean-Michel
Charlier had worked with
Goscinny & Uderzo, in the
founding of the comics
magazine Pilote in 1959 in
which both Asterix and
Redbeard first appeared
appeared.

19. Luca Pacioli was an Italian monk who among
other things taught mathematics to L
h hi h h i Leonardo d
d da
Vinci.But his everlasting claim to fame was the
concept that he introduced in a section of an
Italian book called “Particularis de Computis et
Scripturis”. What concept? Double book keeping
p p p g

20. X, A trained hypnotist, author of books – God’s
debris and the religion war (not an exhaustive
list), CEO of X foods inc. that produces a vegan
microwave burrito named after one of his
creations. X also popularized words such as
“Nerdvana”, “Induhvidual”,“Shitundfood”and
“QWERTYitis”. Identify X. Scot Adams the
Dilbert guy

21. Mabaker
M b k
inspired
Mabeagle

22. Which place in India gets its name from the fact
that i was given b the P d
h it i by h Pandavas as guru
dakshina to Dronacharya. Over the past 10 years
the city has undergone rapid development and
construction. A wave of multinational companies
choose to locate their call centres here after GE
did so in 1997. Gurgaon

23. • The tradition is nearly 300 years old.
• Besan, Sugar, Cashew nuts, Cardamom, Ghee,
Oil, Sugar candy, Raisins and Almonds are used.
• Th i
The ingredients are b
di t bought at th auction at th
ht t the ti t the
Commodities and Spices Exchange in Kochi.
• The administrating body is planning to patent it
to stop counterfeits. Tirupati laddoo

24. This man was recently in the news..
What was he famous for ??

25. Tsutomu Y
T t Yamaguchi – th fi t recorded survivor
hi the first d d i
of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

26. The origin of this is traced to the heyday of the
textile ill Th
t til mills. The mill workers used t h
ill k d to have l
lunchh
breaks too short for a full meal, and a light lunch
was preferred to a heavy one as the employees
one,
had to return to physical labor after lunch. A
vendor created this dish using items or p
g parts of
other dishes available on the menu. Roti or rice
was replaced with ____ and the curries that
usually go with Indian b d or rice were
ll h d bread
amalgamated into just one spicy concoction.
Pav Bhaji
P Bh ji

27. • NIX et al. vs. HEDDEN, Collector. No. 137. May 10, 1893
• At the trial the plaintiff's counsel, after reading in evidence
definitions of the words X and Y from Webster's Dictionary,
Worcester s Dictionary,
Worcester's Dictionary and the Imperial Dictionary called two
Dictionary,
witnesses, who had been for 30 years in the business of selling X
and Y, and asked them, after hearing these definitions, to say
whether these words had 'any special meaning in trade or
commerce,
commerce different from those read '
read.
• One of the witnesses answered as follows: 'Well, it does not classify
all things there, but they are correct as far as they go. It does not
take all kinds of X or Y; it takes a portion of them. I think the words
X and Y h
d have th same meaning i t d t d th t th h d on
the i in trade to-day that they had
March 1, 1883. I understand that the term X is applied in trade only
to such plants or parts of plants as contain the seeds.
• The other witness testified: 'I don't think the term X or the term Y
had, in March, 88
h d i M h 1883, and prior thereto, any special meaning i trade
d i h i l i in d
and commerce in this country different from that which I have read
here from the dictionaries.'
• The plaintiff's counsel then read in evidence from the same
p
dictionaries the definitions of the word Z.
Tomato fruit or vegetable case

28. The American dialect society recently came out
with a word of the d d Whi h word b
ih d f h decade. Which d beat the
h
likes of blog, tweet, facebook etc to emerge as the
word of the decade? google

29. • A B de Villiers
• Brendon McCullum
• Andrew Symonds
• Shaun Marsh
• Sanath Jayasuriya
• Adam Gilchrist
• Mike Hussey y
• ????

30. Maneesh Pandey

31. During the Boston Tea Party, sacks of tea were
thrown i o the A l i ? Wh was the b
h in h Atlantic? What h brand of
d f
the tea? East India Company

32. The solution reportedly came when X recalled a
situation he had become embroiled in during
1933, shortly after the Four-Power Pact had
come into being. X tried to intervene in a brawl
g
between a shopkeeper and customer, but before
he could, the shopkeeper became so enraged
that h l
h he lost hi composure f a moment and
his for d
accused his customer of being a "four-power
pact
pact". X was struck by this use of an “irrelevant
irrelevant
insult”. Put fundae!!

34. Charles Leiper Grigg (
h l i i (1868–1948) was the
) h
inventor of Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime soda
for “The Hody Corporation”. It contained lithium
The Corporation
citrate, a mood-stabilizing drug. It was one of a
number of patent medicine products popular in the
late-19th and early-20th centuries; they made
claims similar to today's health foods. Specifically it
was marketed as a hangover cure Prior to inventing
cure.
____, Grigg had created an orange soft drink
named "Whistle" for the Vess Soda Company. It is
still made and sold in St. Louis. A common urban
legend about Charles Leiper Grigg is that he was an
albino,
albino and this was represented in the logo after the
inventor died. 7 up

35. Identify the place Titan

36. On January 24, 1961, X was i involved i a near-fatal car
l d in f l
accident on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Hit head-
on, X suffered a triple skull fracture that left him in a
coma for three weeks along with fractures of both legs
weeks,
and the pelvis.
The accident prompted over 15,000 get-well cards from
anxious fans including some addressed only to “Y
fans, Y,
Hollywood, USA", according to X's autobiography. One
newspaper falsely reported that he had died. After his
recovery, X reported in TV interviews, and later in his
y, p ,
autobiography, that a clever doctor had helped him to
come out of his coma by talking to him as Y, after futile
efforts to talk directly to X. Although he had no actual
recollection of this X's wife and son swore to him that
this, X s
when the doctor was inspired to ask him, "How are you
today, Y?", X answered in Y’s voice. X thus credited Y
with saving his life Mel Blanc
life.

37. Identify the significance last strip

38. The word was coined by Horace Walpole on 28
January 1754 in a letter he wrote to his friend
Horace Mann, an Englishman then living in
Florence. The letter read,,
"It was once when I read a silly fairy tale, called The
Three Princes of _____: as their highnesses
travelled, they were always making discoveries, by
accidents and sagacity, of things which they were
not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered
that a camel blind of the right eye had travelled the
g y
same road lately, because the grass was eaten only
on the left side, where it was worse than on the
right—now do you understand____? One of the
g y
most remarkable instances of this was of my Lord
Shaftsbury, who happening to dine at Lord
Chancellor Clarendon's, found out the marriage of
the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, b the respect with
h k f k d d by h ih
which her mother treated her at table.“ serendipity

39. A X i about the most massively useful thing an i
is b h i l f l hi interstellar
ll
hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value--you
can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the
cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant
marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the
heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars
which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use
it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it
for use in hand-to-hand combat; wrap it round your head
to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly
stupid animal, it assumes th t if you can't see it it can't see
t id i l that 't it, 't
you--daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your
X in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry
yourself off with it if it still seems to b clean enough. Very
lf ff h f ll be l h
very simple ☺ towel

40. Freddie mercury

41. “Anyone living in the United States in the early
1990s and paying even a whisper of attention to
d i hi f i
the nightly news or a daily paper could be
forgiven for having been scared out of his skin ”
skin.
These are the first lines of which famous book?
Freakonomics

42. Seynt Audries lace, ‘lace’ or necktie such as was
lace
sold at St. Audrey's fair in remembrance of St.
Audrey, i.e. Etheldrida, or Æðelðryð (daughter
of Anna, king of East Anglia, and patron saint of
Ely), who died of a tumour in the throat which
she regarded as a j t retribution f
h d d just t ib ti for h
her
youthful fondness for splendid necklaces. What
word originated from this ? tawdry

43. Identify? Snow white

44. Fire escapes, Chocolate-chip cookies, Circular
saw, Dishwasher, Refrigerator,
saw Dishwasher Refrigerator Electric hot
water heater, Alphabet blocks, Elevated railway,
Globes, Ironing board, Kevlar, Locomotive
chimney, Rotary engine, Liquid Paper . (Not an
exhaustive list)
Connect. Women inventors

45. Richard Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin, two
college graduates unhappy with their
employment, began the company in a LA garage
in 1948. Their first market idea was a slingshot.
The idea
Th id came up as they h l d meat i
h hurled into the
h
air for the training of pet falcons and hawks. It
was called “_____ “ to resemble the sound of a
target hit. It stuck as the name of the company.
They are known for inventing many of the most
popular modern t
l d toys, i l di
including th h l h
the hula hoop,
the frisbee, the hacky sack, the super ball and the
p
predecessor of modern nerf dart guns. Which
g
company?

47. Funda
breaking the
4th wall

48. From W t l
F Waterloo, it was placed onto a t i d
l d t train drawn
by a Battle of Britain locomotive named X.
Thousands gathered to pay tribute at wayside
stations. At many football matches a two-minute
silence was observed. X was finally laid to rest in
y
the Oxfordshire parish churchyard of Bladon,
close to Blenheim Palace where he was born 90
years b f
before, with only f il members present.
i h l family b
The it h
Th epitaph contains “I am ready t meet my
t i d to t
maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the
great ordeal of meeting me is another matter”
matter
winston churchill

49. Scientists say this is bad for health because more
than 40,000 parasites, 250 types of bacteria, 0.7
g
grams of protein, and 0.45 grams of fat and 0.19
p , 45 g 9
grams of other organic substances are
exchanged. Explain. French kiss

50. Identify the three paintings Van Gogh

51. The idea of using the flamboyant third
movement from Mozart's 25th Symphony in G
5 y p y
minor, written when Mozart was only 17 years
old, came from Suresh Mullick. Mozart's
symphony had already been immortalised for
contemporary non-cognoscenti in one of the
g
greatest movies of our time, AMADEUS, which
, ,
was released in 1984. It was such a resounding
success that it was never ever dropped, and no
thoughts were ever entertained of making a
change.
Easy.. What ?? Titan music

52. The company was founded in 1963 by X as a spin-off
from the very successful tractor maker, X was an
enthusiastic owner of sports cars, including a
Ferrari. The standard tale goes that he took this car
back to the Ferrari factory when its clutch failed.
Enzo Ferrari refused to meet him saying that 'A
him, A
tractor manufacturer could never be expected to
understand high-bred sports cars'. So—after fixing
the l t h ith
th clutch with surprising ease—he d id d t go
i i h decided to
into business, building the perfect GT (Grand
Touring) car. (Another version of the tale holds that
X was incensed when he found out that the bum
clutch on his Ferrari was the was the exact same
model that he used on his tractors, only far more
expensive.) Easy.. The company.. Lamborghini

53. A tribute question
Connect Salinger