This week's questions cover current affairs, business,
finance, and science.
This quiz is reprinted from "The Economist" with
permission.
1. Half of the world's countries now have smaller
populations than the state of
Massachusetts.
This is because:
-Massachusetts now includes most of what was once Vermont
-AIDS has reduced populations in 14 poor countries by 20% or more
-The number of countries has doubled since the first world war
-The number of countries has tripled since the first world war
2. When the late
Princess Diana married Prince Charles in 1981, the
television audience
for the event was estimated at nearly one in five of the
world's population.
At the time of her funeral in 1997, the number of
television sets
for every 100 people in the world had:
-Risen from 11.7 to 23.4
-Fallen from 23.4 to 11.7, because of the Internet
-Risen from 32.8 to 41.2
-Fallen from 41.2 to 32.8, because people reproduce faster than televisions
3. The Economist's
Big Mac Index is the world's most reliable currency
indicator to be
based on a fast-food item. This magazine's ten-year retrospective on the
index, published
in April 1998, found that:
-The Malaysian ringgit is overvalued against the Chicken McNugget
-The South Korean won rose by over 40 percentage points in 1988-95
-European beef prices fell by 27% in 1997, because of mad-cow disease
-The yen has slumped by 119 percentage points since 1995
4. In 1972 the
Club of Rome's influential report “Limits to Growth”
predicted that
reserves of natural gas, silver, tin, uranium, copper, lead and
zinc would shortly
decline. The report was:
-Right about everything except tin
-Wrong about everything except tin
- Right about lead and silver, but wrong about everything else
-Wrong about lead and silver, but right about everything else
5. Surveys show
that smokers are bad at gauging the risks of succumbing to
tobacco-induced
diseases. Their estimates of the risk that they will develop
lung cancer are
typically:
-Understated by a factor of ten
-Overstated by a factor of four
-Understated by a factor of four
-Overstated by a factor of ten
6. In the whole
of the 17th century fewer than 600 students attended
Harvard, which
was then one of only two universities in the United States.
Graduation rates
have increased in all developed countries since then. Which
of the following
countries had the highest graduation rate in 1994?
-Britain
-Norway (just)
-Japan
-Switzerland (by miles)
7. Japan's shinkansen
high-speed railway line between Tokyo and Osaka has
been in operation
for 34 years and carries 368,000 passengers each day, with
an average deviation
from schedule of 36 seconds per train. Which one of the
following statements
is true?
-The average sarariman is late for work 1.3 times per century
-Over 2 billion kilometres of noodles have been eaten in its restaurant
cars
- More than 3 billion passenger/journeys have been made on the line
- Fewer than 3,000 maintenance staff work on the line
8. President Fidel
Ramos of the Philippines declared the week beginning
April 12th 1997
to be “National Consciousness Week of the Imperative for
Punctuality and
Respect for the Rights of Others”. The event was marred by
the fact that:
-The central bank raised interest rates by four points that week, causing
riots
-The president, distracted by golf, was an hour late for the launch of
the event
-Imelda Marcos pointed out that April 12th was also her late husband's
birthday
-Celebrations were so boisterous that a 6pm curfew was imposed
9. From California's
“Silicone Valley” to Kiel's Eros Centre, the sex industry
is booming. A
recent report on the global sex business found that:
-Some East Asian brothels operate “frequent flyer” loyalty schemes
-Adult-video stars’ fees in America have almost tripled in the past ten
years
-Budapest produces more pornography than anywhere else in Europe
-Foot-fetishism is the fastest-growing perversion in Cuba
10. Since the start
of the decade, AT&T has spent more than $1 billion on
management consultancy.
Which of the following was among the pieces of
advice given by
consultants to AT&T and its subsidiaries?
-Staff should wear T-shirts with the words “Putting the moose on the table”
-Senior managers’ cars should be painted in primary colours
-Each department should identify its “core incompetence”
-Every email should be followed up by a phone call
11. The most popular
sport in Malaysia—measured by TV viewership—is
badminton. In
Japan it is sumo wrestling, in South Africa cricket. What is the
most-watched TV
sport in Brazil?
-Tennis
-Volleyball
-Swimming
-Soccer
12. A hydrogen
fuel-cell vehicle requires only half as much energy per mile
as a conventional
petrol vehicle, and emits no carbon dioxide when running.
Unfortunately,
though:
-It currently costs about 100 times more per kilowatt to make such a fuel
cell
-About 15% of the world's population has hydrogen-allergy syndrome
-It is impossible to store enough hydrogen fuel for a trip of more than
60 miles
-Producing the hydrogen fuel causes significant carbon-dioxide emissions
13. Male hornbills
imprison their mates in trees after sex. Other striking
examples of the
battle of the sexes observed in the non-human world include
which of the following?
-Female bonobos attempt to castrate any male who resists their advances
-Siamese fighting fish secrete fluids that can make their rivals homosexual
-Some male spiders carry drugs that are used to befuddle females
-Female Amazonian macaws form raiding parties to capture males
14. In 1996, when
about 23.4m households were connected to the Internet,
consumers spent
only about the same amount of money on the Web as they
did on computer
magazines. Fears about online credit-card fraud put off too
many people. By
mid-1997, how many instances of such fraud had been
documented by
Visa International?
-27
-None
-270
-27,000
15. What is special about September 9th 1999?
-Followers of Paracelsus believe that all gold will disintegrate on that
day
-Britain will adopt the euro, but only for parking meters
-In many computer languages, “until 9/9/99” means “forever”
-There's nothing special about September 9th.