Five general knowledge questions 2 – Quick Quiz answers

By British Expat, 13 November 2016

We asked you five pot-luck general knowledge questions. Here come the answers!

1. Which English monarch’s motto was Semper eadem (“Always the same”)?
   Elizabeth I. Ironically, she was notorious for her short temper and occasional indecisiveness. She reigned for nearly 45 years, from November 1558 to March 1603.
2. Here are two groups of words. Your job was to match the words in Group A with the descriptions in Group B.
   1. matcha
      c. powdered green tea; specifically, it’s the tea used in the Japanese tea ceremony, at least in its higher quality forms. It’s become widely popularised in the West in recent years since being served by Starbucks and similar chains.
   2. pelisse
      a. part of a military uniform or ladies’ fashion item (historical). Originally it was a short fur-trimmed jacket worn over the left shoulder as a protection against sword cuts, but then mutated in the early nineteenth century into a long fitted lady’s coat, often made entirely of silk and with no fur trim.
   3. agnatha
      d. jawless fish. The biological superclass Agnatha is one of the oldest in the animal kingdom, dating back to the Cambrian era approximately 485-540 million years ago. But only two groups of species survive today: lampreys and hagfish.
   4. telemea
      b. ewes’ milk cheese from Romania. Like feta, it can have a high water content and be a smooth, creamy cheese, or it can go through an ageing process which makes it more crumbly. Although there are about ten recognised local varieties of telemea in Romania, only one of them, Telemea de Ibăneşti, has been granted EU Protected Designation of Origin status.
3. The plant cirsium vulgare is a national emblem of which country?
   Scotland – it’s more commonly known as the common thistle, spear thistle or bull thistle. It was designated an “injurious weed” under the Weeds Act 1959. Its origin as Scotland’s emblem goes back to a mediæval legend, in which a Norse army was attempting to sneak up on a Scottish one – one of the Norsemen stood on a thistle, cried out in pain and gave the game away.
4. In which country is the world’s longest railway platform? A bonus point if you can name the city.
   It’s at Gorakhpur Junction station in Uttar Pradesh, India. The platform’s 1,366 metres long – well over three-quarters of a mile. Gorakhpur Junction has been the headquarters of Indian Railways’ North Eastern zone since 1952.
5. Full Throttle, Dr Wham, Bawls and Minute Maid are all brand names of what type of consumer product?
   They’re all soft drinks. Full Throttle and Bawls are energy drinks; Dr Wham is a parallel version of Dr Pepper sold by the Buffalo Rock company in the SE United States where it doesn’t have the Dr Pepper marketing rights; and Minute Maid is the world’s largest marketer of fruit juices and drinks.

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