JAQR - November 4, 2022
OQL (Online Quiz League) Question Review
I was out of town this weekend, so instead I prepared a recap of 10 Online Quiz League (OQL) questions from the current season. I tried to pick out some hard but not impossible ones. If you want to watch a sample match or see some more previous questions, head to their website: https://quizcentral.net/qc/Online_Quiz_League_USA
The first half of the email will include just the questions so you can quiz yourself if you want. The second half will include the questions, answers, and some additional info about the answers or related topics.
OQL Week 1 Questions:
Winner of seven Country Music Association awards including two Song of The Year awards for “Rainbow” and “Follow Your Arrow,” which singer could only manage seventh place when she appeared on the reality show Nashville Star in 2007?
What type of bird with long tail feathers is silhouetted on the flag of Papua New Guinea?
What is the stage name of Mexican-born Mario Moreno who was beloved throughout Spanish-speaking countries for his comedy using wordplay and puns? He also won a Golden Globe Award for his role in 1956's Around the World in 80 Days.
Which fatal neurodegenerative disease of sheep and goats, thought to be caused by prions, has a name which arises from the tendency of affected animals to develop abrasions through rubbing against rocks, resulting in loss of fleece and skin?
OQL Week 2 Questions:
Following a win over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII, who became the first African American quarterback to win a Super Bowl, as well as the first to win Super Bowl MVP?
What is the largest city on the Mediterranean island of Corsica? It has a soccer team in France’s Ligue 1.
Only five men have held the rank of 5-star general in the US army. Which of these was the subject of a 1977 film starring Gregory Peck?
Voted one of the most memorable lines of all time by the American Film Institute, “The stuff that dreams are made of” is a line from which classic 1941 movie?
OQL Week 3 Questions:
On which Hawaiian island will you find Mount Wai'ale'ale (WYE-ahlay-AH-lay) at the center of the island? Sometimes inaccurately called the wettest place on Earth. its lush forests give the island the nickname The Garden Isle.
According to the Standard Model of Elementary Particles, which class of particles includes the types muon, tau, and electron, as well as their neutrinos?
OQL Week 1 Questions:
Winner of seven Country Music Association awards including two Song of The Year awards for “Rainbow” and “Follow Your Arrow,” which singer could only manage seventh place when she appeared on the reality show Nashville Star in 2007?
***KACEY MUSGRAVES*** (40% correct)
Her first album, Same Trailer Different Park, was released in 2013 and contains the song "Follow Your Arrow," whose lyrics include “So, make lots of noise / Kiss lots of boys / Or kiss lots of girls / If that's something you're into.” Her fourth album, Golden Hour, was released in 2018. It contains the songs "Space Cowboy," “Butterflies,” and the ballad “Rainbow,” the last of which features the lyrics “You hold tight to your umbrella / Well, darlin', I'm just tryin' to tell ya / That there's always been a rainbow hangin' over your head.” Golden Hour won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2019.
Her fifth and most recent album, released in 2021, is titled Star-Crossed, and was partly inspired by Romeo and Juliet. The album was written while in the middle of her divorce from fellow (country) singer Ruston Kelly. The album includes the song “Justified,” which she performed naked on SNL in 2021. The album also includes “Simple Times,” whose music video (which is part of a much longer film) features Musgraves in a mall along with Victoria Pedretti (from the TV show You), Symone (the winner of Season 13 of RuPaul's Drag Race), and the rapper Princess Nokia.
What type of bird with long tail feathers is silhouetted on the flag of Papua New Guinea?
***BIRD OF PARADISE*** (38% correct)
Papua New Guinea isn’t the only country with an animal on its flag. Here are some other countries (excludes ones that are part of the coat of arms):
Albania = (black) double-headed eagle
Bhutan = thunder dragon (or “druk”)
Dominica = sisserou (a type of parrot)
Kazakhstan = steppe eagle
Serbia = (white) double-headed eagle
Sri Lanka = lion
Uganda = grey crowned crane
Wales = red dragon
Zimbabwe = Zimbabwe Bird (likely an eagle)
What is the stage name of Mexican-born Mario Moreno who was beloved throughout Spanish-speaking countries for his comedy using wordplay and puns? He also won a Golden Globe Award for his role in 1956's Around the World in 80 Days.
***CANTINFLAS*** (21% correct)
The comic actor Cantinflas [cahn-TEEN-flas] is often described as the “Mexican Charlie Chaplin.” He adopted his stage name after a heckler yelled “En la cantina tu inflas!" (roughly meaning "In the bar you talk big!"). He became a star following the 1940 movie Ahí está el detalle (meaning "there's the rub”), whose title provided his catchphrase for the rest of his career. American audiences probably know him best for the movie Around the World in Eighty Days, in which he played Passepartout, the bumbling valet of Phileas Fogg (played by David Niven, AKA the "original" James Bond). He lends his name to the Spanish verb cantinflear, which means "to talk much but say little.” He often sported a peculiar moustache.
Which fatal neurodegenerative disease of sheep and goats, thought to be caused by prions, has a name which arises from the tendency of affected animals to develop abrasions through rubbing against rocks, resulting in loss of fleece and skin?
***SCRAPIE*** (15% correct)
Prions [PRE-ahnz] are misfolded forms of proteins in the brain that can cause various neurodegenerative diseases. The term prion is short for "proteinaceous infectious particle." Stanley Prusiner won a Nobel Prize for discovering them. Since they are able to replicate without going through DNA or RNA intermediates, some scientists believe that prions violate molecular biology's central dogma (often stated as "DNA makes RNA and RNA makes protein").
Many prion diseases are examples of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, in which brain tissue becomes indented with holes in a sponge-like pattern. Examples of prion diseases include:
Mad cow disease: also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, it affects cattle
Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease: named for two German neurologists, it affects humans
Kuru: transmitted through “funerary cannibalism” (a mourning ritual in which the brains of dead people are eaten), it was formerly prevalent among the Fore [FOR-ay] people of New Guinea
OQL Week 2 Questions:
Following a win over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII, who became the first African American quarterback to win a Super Bowl, as well as the first to win Super Bowl MVP?
***DOUG WILLIAMS*** (35% correct)
Doug Williams led Washington’s NFL team (coached by Joe Gibbs) to victory 42-10 over the favored Broncos (led by quarterback John Elway and coached by Dan Reeves) in Super XXII [22] (played in early 1988 but usually considered the 1987 season). Denver took an early 10-0 lead in the game, but Washington scored 35 points in the second quarter, thanks in part to four touchdowns thrown by Doug Williams. He attended Grambling State (and later coached its football team, twice) and is the author of the book Quarterblack: Shattering the NFL Myth. Washington's other NFL championships have come in Super Bowl XVII [17] (led by quarterback Joe Theismann, before he broke his leg) and Super Bowl XXVI [26] (led by Canadian-born quarterback Mark Rypien [RIP-in], who is the uncle of current NFL quarterback Brett Rypien).
What is the largest city on the Mediterranean island of Corsica? It has a soccer team in France’s Ligue 1.
***AJACCIO*** (31% correct)
Corsica, known as Corse in French, is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and a "territorial collectivity" belonging to France. It is France’s second largest island (behind only Grande-Terre, which is the main island of New Caledonia). It is the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean (the three biggest are Sicily, Sardinia, and Cyprus). It is separated from nearby Sardinia to the south by the Strait of Bonifacio. It is separated from Genoa, Italy to the north by the Ligurian Sea and from Italy’s Tuscany region by the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Tuscan Archipelago (consists of Elba, Monte Cristo, and five other islands) is in between Corsica and the Italian mainland. Corsica is home to a type of crust-less cheesecake called fiadone, which contains brocciu (a type of Corsican cheese typically made from sheep's milk). Ajaccio [ah-YAHT-choh], Corsica was the birthplace of the OG short king, Napoleon Bonaparte.
Only five men have held the rank of 5-star general in the US army. Which of these was the subject of a 1977 film starring Gregory Peck?
***DOUGLAS MACARTHUR*** (27% correct)
Douglas MacArthur commanded Allied forces in the Pacific during WWII. Early on during the war, he was forced to escape from the Philippines, but vowed "I shall return." He accepted the formal surrender of Japan on board the USS Missouri in 1945 and oversaw the post-war occupation of Japan. He later led U.N. forces during the Korean War, but was relieved of his command by President Truman (and replaced with Matthew Ridgway) due to advancing into North Korea and wanting to bomb China. He announced his retirement in a speech that quoted an old barrack ballad: “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.” Gregory Peck played him in the 1977 movie MacArthur, which was directed by Joseph Sargent.
The other four men to hold the rank of 5-star general in the U.S. army are:
George C. Marshall - The European Recovery Program is the official name of his namesake "plan," for which he won a Nobel Peace Prize.
Dwight D. Eisenhower - Warned of the military-industrial complex in his final public speech as president in 1961.
Henry H. Arnold - Nicknamed “Hap,” he was a member of the Air Force (which was established as a separate branch in 1947)
Omar Bradley - First ever Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (promoted to five-star rank in 1950; the others were all promoted in 1944)
Voted one of the most memorable lines of all time by the American Film Institute, “The stuff that dreams are made of” is a line from which classic 1941 movie?
***THE MALTESE FALCON*** (17% correct)
The noir film The Maltese Falcon (1941) is based on a novel by Dashiell [DASH-ul] Hammett. It features the San Francisco detective Sam Spade (played by Humphrey Bogart) and centers on the search for the title object, which is a valuable statue of a bird created by the Knights Templar of Malta. The movie co-stars Mary Astor as a "femme fatale" client, Peter Lorre as the “perfumed” Joel Cairo, and Sydney Greenstreet as the villainous Kasper Gutman, who is nicknamed the "Fat Man." The movie was directed by John Huston, the father of actress Anjelica Huston. The famous quote from the movie is based on a line from Shakespeare’s The Tempest spoken by Prospero: “We are such stuff / As dreams are made on; and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep.”
OQL Week 3 Questions:
On which Hawaiian island will you find Mount Wai'ale'ale (WYE-ahlay-AH-lay) at the center of the island? Sometimes inaccurately called the wettest place on Earth. its lush forests give the island the nickname The Garden Isle.
***KAUAI*** (58% correct)
Kauai [kah-oo-AH-ee] is one of Hawaii’s eight main islands. The three largest are Hawaii (“The Big Island”), Maui (“The Valley Isle”), and Oahu (“The Gathering Place”). The four that are smaller than Kauai are:
Molokai (“The Friendly Isle”) - Formerly home to a leper colony whose caregivers included Father Damien and Mother Marianne Cope.
Lanai (“The Pineapple Isle”) - Formerly owned by Dole and used as a pineapple plantation, it is now mostly owned by Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
Niihau [NEE-ee-HAH-oo] (“The Forbidden Isle”) - Sold to Elizabeth Sinclair by King Kamehameha IV for $10,000, the island is now owned by her descendants who prohibit tourism for the most part.
Kahoolawe [kah-HOH-oh-LAH-wey] (“The Target Isle”) - Formerly used by the U.S. military for bombing exercises and to test munitions, it is now owned by the state and has a permanent population of zero.
According to the Standard Model of Elementary Particles, which class of particles includes the types muon, tau, and electron, as well as their neutrinos?
***LEPTONS*** (29% correct)
Elementary particles can be divided into two main types: bosons and fermions. Bosons have integer spin (e.g. 0, 1, 2) and are named for Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose. Fermions have half-integer spin (e.g. 1/2) and are named for Italian physicist Enrico Fermi. Fermions can be further divided into leptons and quarks. Unlike leptons, quarks are never seen in isolation and are bound together to form hadrons (e.g. protons and neutrons).
