Professors’ Trivia Night 2017

As is our annual tradition, this year’s faculty end-of-semester event was in a pub and featured much alcohol and unhealthful foods. Unlike previous years, though, this year we decided to play my favourite full contact sport: TRIVIA.

Long time readers of this blog will know that I style myself an amateur game show host and trivia master. It’s kind of sad that despite my many degrees and years of higher education, my true calling, in my heart, is to host a daytime TV game show.

Previous iterations of my hosted trivia nights have been documented here and here. And, to be honest, due to limited time and a lot of work on my plate, I ended up recycling a LOT of those earlier questions. But some are new this year. Some were even taken from an episode of Science Monkey.

One of our high expectation competitors

The other important consideration is that our program is officially bilingual, which means that some of my questions had to be in French. Also, did I mention that all of the contestants were science professors?  (With the exception of three administrative staff members (who are remarkably smart and well educated themselves.)

The evening proceeded with three rounds of ten questions each, with a final short round of three questions. The questions are below, with the answers at the very bottom of this page.

Then there’s this guy

All you really need to know is that there were two teams, one consisting of the more recently hired professors, including our new Director, and other consisting of the more seasoned professors, including two former Directors and Vice Deans.  In other words, New Directors vs Old Directors. (The Old Directors insisted on being called Ex Directors, but whatever.)

The New Directors won.

ROUND 1

1 In what city was Christopher Columbus born?
2 Victoria Claflin Woodhull was the first American woman to do what, in 1872?
3 The only country in Western hemisphere named for an element?
4 What do John F. Kennedy, Anthony Burgess, Aldous Huxley, and C.S. Lewis have in common?
5 In the era of the dinosaurs, was a day longer, shorter or the same length as today?
6 On moonless nights, what celestial feature do dung beetles use to navigate?
7 Are muppets left handed or right handed?
8 How many vaginas does a female kangaroo have?
9 Who was Canadian Prime Minister during WWI?
10 Combien de personnes ont marché sur la Lune?

ROUND 2

1 What is the currency of Brazil called?
2 In what year was Napolean defeated at Waterloo?
3 What percentage of the world’s population is left-handed? 10%, 20%, or 30%?
4 Who is the only athlete ever to play in a Super Bowl and a World Series?
5 In which state of the United States would you find Fort Knox?
6 What is the largest three-digit prime number?
7 What’s the capital city of Zambia?
8 What Canadian province has the highest percentage of women in their provincial legislature?
9 The Euro was introduced as an accounting currency in 1999. But in what year did it become legal tender as cash currency?
10 Quelle est la seule province officiellement bilingue?

ROUND 3

1 What organ of a buffalo did Plains Indians use to make yellow paint?
2 What is the hardest substance in the human body?
3 What is the currency of South Africa called?
4 What is the single most prescribed drug in the world?
5 In front of Les Suites Hotel on Besserer street stands a statue of what South American leader?
6 How many paintings did Vincent Van Gogh sell during his lifetime?
7 What body of water separates Saudi Arabia from Africa?
8 Who was the first female Canadian astronaut to actually go to space?
9 What was Malcolm X’s real surname?
10 quel auteur a écrit le petit prince

FINAL ROUND

1 Shakespeare only wrote one comedy with the word “Love” in it. What was the title of that comedy?
2 In 1667, the first recorded blood transfusion featuring a human recipient was recorded. But what species of animal donated the blood?
3 Who was the first Canadian woman to win an Oscar for Best Actress?

Ready for the answers?  Here we go…

ANSWERS

ROUND 1

1 Genoa
2 Run for President
3 Argentina
4 They all died on the same day
5 Shorter
6 The Milky Way
7 Left handed because the puppeteers are right handed, and operate the head with their strong hand
8 Three
9 Robert Borden
10 12

ROUND 2

1 Real
2 1815
3 10%
4 Deion Sanders
5 Kentucky
6 997
7 Lusaka
8 BC (39%)
9 2002
10 Nouveau brunswick

ROUND 3

1 Gall bladder
2 Tooth enamel
3 Rand
4 Hydrocodone (Vicodin)
5 Simon Bolivar
6 One, “The Red Vineyard at Arles”
7 The Red Sea
8 Roberta Bondar
9 Little
10 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

FINAL ROUND

1 Love’s Labours Lost
2 Lamb or sheep
3 Mary Pickford (1928 for “Coquette”)

How did you do?  Put your score in the comments.

 

 

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