1. When Polaroid introduced its cameras in Russia, sales were unusually good despite the high price.

Research showed that this was due to an unanticipated reason. What? Ans: Since the person got the photographs immediately and didn t need to give the negatives for developing, the KGB could not obtain them clandestinely! MCA - Shortage of film 2. When an Elvis Presley stamp was issued in 1993, fans deliberately mailed letters with the stamp to non-existent addresses. Why did they do that? Ans: So that they would be sent back with the Return To Sender post-mark. Return To Sender was an Elvis song. (If you didn't mention the fact that "Return to Sender" was an Elvis song, sorry no points.) MCA - They wanted the canceled stamps. (Well, they could have just mailed it to themselves then!) 3. What important discovery was made by a nineteen year-old on a voyage to England from India aboard the ship Lloyd Triestino in August 1930? Ans: Chandrasekhar s Limit, the postulate that a star of mass greater than 1.4 times that of the sun (the Chandrasekhar limit) would end its life by collapsing into an object of enormous density such as a black hole. MCA - Raman effect (people no doubt influenced by the fact that the discovery was made at sea); Cure for malaria 4. What phrase did pilots of steamers on the Mississippi use to indicate that the water was up to the two fathom mark on their depth-finding line? Ans: Mark Twain. Samuel Longhorne Clemens took his pen name from this. MCA - Mark Twain, though a large number of people didn't get it. This is such a chestnut that every quizzer would probably encounter it once a year! 5. He was a member of Yale s Olympic gold medal winning rowing team in 1924 and ran for President of the United States in 1972. Whom are we referring to? Ans: Dr. Benjamin Spock, known for the child-care books he has written. MCA - Richard Nixon; Barry Goldwater 6. The Mousetrap holds the record for being the longest running play in the world. When it was first staged, the lead character, Sergeant Trotter, was played by a person we all know as an eminent film personality. The female lead, Mollie Ralston, was played by a lady who went on to become his wife. Who was the man? Ans: Richard Attenborough MCA - Laurence Olivier 7. As a youth in Poland in the 1930s, he was a budding actor and joined a theater troupe. He showed so much promise that his friends never doubted that he was going to become either an actor or a man of letters. During World War II, he worked as a laborer at a quarry operated by the German-run Solvay chemical firm on the outskirts of Krakow, where other workers called him the student. Who is he? Ans: Karol Wojtyla, now known as Pope John Paul II. MCA - Lech Walesa 8. Robert Lucas, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1995 got to keep only half the one million dollars prize money. However, had he won the prize the next year, he would have kept the whole amount. Why was this? This has nothing to do with taxes! Ans: When Lucas divorced his wife in 1987, she got a clause added to the settlement stating that that she should receive half the Nobel Prize money if he won it before October 31, 1995. Lucas made it with a few weeks to

spare! (Merely mentioning that he went through a divorce doesn't merit any credit.) MCA - He had to share it; The guy he won it with died. 9. Which word is derived from the Greek word for pebble because the Greek method of voting was to cast a pebble into yes or no urns? Ans: Psephology, from psephos. MCA - Calculus; Ostracize; Ballot; Plebiscite (Pebbliscite?!) Calculus is derived from the Latin word for a small stone used in an abacus; ostracize is from the Greek word for a shell/postsherd on which a person's name would be written while voting; ballot is from an Italian word for ball; plebiscite is from Latin for common people voting. Only psephology is derived from the Greek word for pebble (Source: OED) 10. How many Wimbledon singles titles has Ivan Lendl won? One, and not zero as is commonly believed. Lendl won the Boys Singles Championship at Wimbledon in 1978 when he was eighteen years old. MCA - None.