ACADEMIC QUESTIONS

MATH ---LANGUAGE & LITERATURE

EASY
1. Which of Swift's novels is an
allegorical tale describing
travel to lands of giants,
miniature people and
intelligent horses? A:
Gulliver's Travels.
2. What do we call a phrase
that combines two
contradictory words--such as
pretty ugly, jumbo shrimp or
unbiased opinion? A: An
oxymoron.
3. If you were crapulous what would
you be?
a. drunk
b. stupid
c. nauseous
d. constipated
4. Who wrote The Alchemist?
A: Ben Jonson.
5. Which character in Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland
suffered from the mercury
poisoning characteristic of his
trade?
A: The Mad Hatter.
6. Which of Swift's novels is an
allegorical tale describing travel to
lands of giants, miniature people
and intelligent horses?
A: Gulliver's Travels.
7. What was Oscar Wilde's only
novel?
A: The Picture of Dorian Gray.
8. Who wrote The Divine Comedy?
A: Dante.
9. Who wrote Journey to the Center
of the Earth?
A: Jules Verne.

10. Ernest Hemmingway once said

that having lots of sex would
protect against what?
A: Allergies
11. What famous literary character
lives at 4 Privet Road?
A: Harry Potter
12. In which Shakespeare play are
Stephano and Trinculo
characters?
A: The Tempest
13. What famous poet once said "A
woman is only a woman but a
good cigar is a smoke" ?
A: Rudyard Kipling
14. What does the word climax mean
in Greek?
A: "Ladder." In Greece it is spelled
klimax.
15. Which American writer was courtmartialled in 1830 for neglect of
duty?
A: Edgar Allen Poe.
16. Richard Bachman is a pseudonym
of what famous writer?
A: Steven King
17. What is the literal meaning of
"aloha"--the Hawaiian word of
greeting and farewell?
A: Love.
18. What does the word yoga mean in
Sanskirt?
A: Union.
19. How many letters are there in the
Hawaiian alphabet?
A: 12---A, E, I, O, U, H, K, L, M, N,
P and W.
20. What does a gozzard have or
own?
A: Geese
21. If one inpissates a soup, what are
they doing to it?
mixing it, blowing it, sipping it
A: Thickening it
22. Telesphobia is a fear of what?
A: Being Last

23. The word Atom comes from Greek

meaning what?
A: Indestructible
24. In superstition, if a woman sees a
robin on Valentine's day who will
she marry?
A: Sailor
25. In the Bible, which of the four
horsemen of the Apocalypse rides
a red horse?
A: War (Book of Revelation).
26. How many people were on Noah's
Ark?
A: Eight--- Noah, his wife; and his
sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth
and their wives.
27. What are a group of greyhounds
called?
A: A Leash
28. What do you call a group of
Eagles?
A: Convocation

English translation: Hyperlink

Filipino word: Initsigan
English translation: Thermodynamics
duyog
Filipino word: Duyog

Filipino word: Danumsigwasan

English translation: Hydraulics

Filipino word: Dagibalniing liboy

English translation: Electromagnetic
wave

Filipino word: Pang-ulong hatinig

English translation: Headset

Filipino word: Bilnuran

English translation: Arithmetic

Filipino word: Panginain

English translation: Browser
pantablay

Filipino word: Asoge

English translation: Mercury

Filipino word: Pantablay

English translation: Charger

Filipino word: Anluwage

English translation: Carpenter

Filipino word: Miktinig

English translation: Microphone
Filipino word: Kawingan

Ernest Hemingway once wrote that a man

must do four things in his life to demonstrate
his manhood. What were they?

A: Plant a tree, fight a bull, write a book, and

have a son.
What famous American writer was granted a
patent for a best-selling book that contained
no words?
A: Mark Twain. It was a Self-Pasting
Scrapbook containing blank pages coated
with a gum veneer.

Men Against the Sea and Pitcairn's

Island were two sequels to what
famous novel?
A: Mutiny On The Bounty.
In what comic strip would you have
found an animal called the "Schmoo"?
A: Li'l Abner.

The Emerald City was the working title of

which classic novel?
A: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

What couple live next door to

Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead in
"Blondie"?
A: Herb and Tootsie Woodley.

What book was Mark David Chapman

carrying with him when he killed John
Lennon on 12/8/80?
A: J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye.

What is the only novel to top the bestseller lists for two consecutive years?
A: Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

What writer worked as a Pinkerton

detective on cases involving movie
comic Fatty Arbuckle and gambler
Nick Arnstein?
A: Dashiell Hammett.
What writer was expelled from West
Point for showing up for a public
parade wearing only a white belt and
gloves?
A: Edgar Allan Poe.
What was the working title of Joseph
Heller's a best-selling Catch 22?
A: Catch 18.
What Frenchman wrote about two
fantastic space odysseys--one to the
moon and one to the sun--more than
200 years before Jules Verne?
A: Cyrano de Bergerac.
What kind of tree was Betty Smith
referring to in her book "A Tree Grows
in Brooklyn"?
A: An ailanthus, known as "the tree of
heaven."

What classic gothic novel of 1818 was

subtitled, The Modern Prometheus?
A: Frankenstein.
Who was the Lone Ranger's great
grand-nephew?
A: The Green Hornet.
Psychologist William Moulton Marston,
inventor of the polygraph, or lie
detector, also created a famous comic
book heroine,. Who was she?"|
A: Wonder Woman.
The Max Fleischer cartoon character,
Betty Boop, was based on which reallife actress?
A: Helen Kane, known as the boopboop-a-doop girl.
"Last night I dreamt I went to
Manderley again," was the first line of
what Daphne du Maurier novel?
A: Rebecca.
What is the actual title of Leonardo da
Vinci's "Mona Lisa"?
A: La Gioconda.

Who did cartoonist Milton Caniff use as

his inspiration for the Dragon Lady, in
his "Terry and the Pirates" comic strip?
A: Joan Crawford.
In Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's
famous poem, Hiawatha, what was the
name of Hiawatha's wife?
A: Minnehaha.
What famous American writer worked
as an entertainer aboard a Swedish
ocean liner cruising the Caribbean
before being drafted to serve in World
War II?
A: J. D. Salinger.
To whom did Helen Keller dedicate her
autobiography, The Story of My Life?
A: To inventor Alexander Graham Bell,
who helped direct her education and
considered himself, first and foremost,
a teacher of the deaf.
What did famed architect Frank Lloyd
Wright reply when an important client
called to complain that water on the
roof of his newly completed house was
leaking onto a dinner guest?
A : "Tell him to move his chair".
What were the first names of L'il Abner
Yokum's parents in the popular Al
Capp comic strip?
A: Mammy was Pansy; Pappy, Lucifer.
How many husbands did the Wife of
Bath have, as reported in Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales?
A: Five.
What were the first names of Robert
Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde?
A: The good doctor was Henry; the evil
Mr. Hyde, Edward.

In what unusual way did writer Nathan

Weinstein follow publisher Horace
Greeley's advice to "Go west, young
man"?
A: He changed his last name to West-and became famous as Nathanael
West, author of "Miss Lonelyhearts"
and "The Day of the Locust."
What was the name of the she-ape
that rescued the infant Tarzan and
raised him to be Lord of the Apes?
A: Kala.
In what best-selling book did an author
offer acknowledgement to a friend
who later killed him?
A: "The Complete Scarsdale Medical
Diet," in which Dr. Herman Tarnower
thanked his friend Jean Harris.
What was Dr. Frankenstein's first name
in the famous novel by Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelly?
A: Victor.
What cartoon character's "racy
lifestyle" once led to a ban on his
comic books in youth club libraries in
Helsinki, Finland?
A: Donald Duck's, in 1978.
What was the name of the cat Alice
left behind when she fell down the
rabbit hole in Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland by Lewis Carroll?
A: Dinah.
What was Rembrandt's last name?
A: Van Ryn.
What American novel was the first to
sell over one million copies?
A: Uncle Tom's Cabin.

What comic strip character was the

first to grow up and age in the strip?
A: Skeezix, who first appeared in the
Gasoline Alley comic strip as a baby
left on bachelor Walt Wallet's
doorstep.

A: Ten pounds-- five down and another

five pounds when all 1,300 copies in
the first printing were sold. After
Milton's death, his widow gave up all
future claims for an additional eight
pounds.

What is the name of the gypsy girl the

hunchback Quasimodo falls in love
with in Victor Hugo's The Hunchback
of Notre Dame?
A: Esmeralda.

In Gulliver's Travels, what was a

professor at the Grand Academy in
Lagado busily trying to extract from
cucumbers?
A: Sunbeams.

Who wrote the poem The Pied Piper of

Hamelin?
A: Russian Wassily Kandinsky.

What was the first name of super

capitalist war profiteer "Daddy"
Warbucks in the Little Orphan Annie
cartoon series?
A: Oliver.

By what score was Mudville defeated

in Ernest Thayer's classic poem Casey
at the Bat?
A: The score was 4 to 2.
For what career was Western writer
Zane Grey trained?
A: Dentistry.
What famous play served as the
inspiration for the 1956 science fiction
film Forbidden Planet?
A : Shakespeare's The Tempest.
What is the name of the town in which
Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prizewinning play Our Town takes place?
A: Grover's Corners, New Hampshire.
What famous writer is believed to
have made the first reference to
tennis in English literature?
A: Geoffery Chaucer, in 1380, when he
wrote of "playen racket to and fro " in
Troilus and Criseyde.
How much was poet John Milton paid
for his epic poem Paradise Lost, which
was first published in 1667?

1. The Invisible Man , a classic

science fiction novel, was
written by what author?
A. Robert Louis Stevenson
B. H. G. Wells
C. Oscar Wilde
D. Jules Vern
2. According to the book "Lost
Horizon", where was the
fictional city of Shangri-La
located?
A. an island in the South Pacific
B. the mountains of Tibet
C. the jungles of Africa
D. the jungles of Brazil
3. Who was the author of "Rip Van
Winkle"?
A. James Fennimore Cooper
B. Washington Irving
C. Robert Louis Stevenson
D. Nathaniel Hawthorne

4. In a Mark twain novel, a

mechanic from what New
England state went back in time
and visited King Arthur's court?
A. Massachusetts
B. Connecticut
C. Rhode Island
D. New Hampshire
5. Who are the men in the nursery
rhyme that begins, "Rub-a-dubdb / Three men in a tub."
A. Solomon Grundy's children
B. the butcher, the baker, the
candlestick maker
C. the three musketeers
D. three men of Gotham
6.

In Charles Dickens's novel "A

Tale of Two Cities", what are
names of the two cities?
A. Boston and New York
B. Rome and Venice
C. Brussels and Moscow
D. London and Paris

7. What subject are the series of

books, Birnbaum, Fielding,
Fodor, and Frommer written
about?
A. cooking
B. computers
C. nature
D. travel
8. In Alice in Wonderland, which
character is most often seen
weeping?
A. Bill the Lizard
B. the Dormouse
C. the Gryphon

D. the Mock Turtle

9. Which of the following authors
was not also a doctor?
A. Anton Chekhov
B. Somerset Maugham
C. Voltaire
D. William Carlos Williams
10.From Gulliver's Travels, in what
year was Lemuel Gulliver ship
wrecked on Lilliput?
A. 1599
B. 1699
C. 1799
D. 1899
11.Who wrote the early science
fiction work titled "Voyage to
the Moon"?
A. Francis Bacon
B. Cyrano de Bergerac
C. Rene Descartes
D. William Shakespeare
12.What author wrote Far From The
Madding Crowd and Tess of the
d'Urbervilles?
A. Truman Capote
B. Thomas Hardy
C. John Steinbeck
13.The lines, "Oh, East is East and
West is West, / And never the
twain shall meet" were written
by whom?
A. Lord Byron
B. G.K. Chesterton
C. Thomas Hood

D. Rudyard Kipling
14.Edward Lear is famous for what
kind of poem?
A. ballad
B. limerick
C. sonnet
15.In The Phantom Tollbooth, a
Norton Juster's 1962 novel, the
city of Dictionopolis is the rival
of what other city?
A. Alphaville
B. Audiopolis
C. Digitopolis
D. Metropolis
16.Who wrote the sonnet that
starts out "Much have I
travell'd in the realms of gold"?
A. John Donne
B. John Keats
C. John Milton
D. John Smith
17.What is the title of the
Steinbeck novel about Tom Joad
and his family of migrant farm
workers?
A. Cannery Row
B. The Grapes of Wrath
C. Of Mice and Men

19.Where would one find Munchkin

Country, Quadling Country,
Gillikin Country and "Winkie
Country?
A. The Land of Oz
B. Middle Earth
C. Never-Never land
D. Transylvania
20.Which one of the following was
not one of The Three
Musketeers?
A. Aramis
B. Athos
C. D' Artagnan
D. Porthos

ANSWERS
1. B. H. G. Wells
2. B. the mountains of Tibet
3. B. Washington Irving
4. B. Connecticut
5. B. the butcher, the baker, the
candlestick maker
6. D. London and Paris
7. D. travel
8. D. the Mock Turtle
9. C. Voltaire

18.Who wrote Rip Van Winkle?

A. James Fenimore Cooper
B. Nathaniel Hawthorne
C. Washington Irving
D. Robert Louis Stevenson

10.B. 1699
11.C. Rene Descartes
12.B. Thomas Hardy
13.D. Rudyard Kipling

14.B. limerick
15.C. Digitopolis

B. Thank you
C. We've moved
D. You're invited for dinner

16.B. John Keats

17.B. The Grapes of Wrath
18.C. Washington Irving
19.A. The Land of Oz
20.C. D' Artagnan
1. What kind of hyphenation is
used in the phrase "six- to
eight-foot waves"?
A. sequential hyphenation
B. successive hyphenation
C. suspensive hyphenation
2. The narrative poem Eugene
Onegin, that was made into a
ballet by John Cranko, was
authored by whom?
A. Jacques Brel
B. Lord Byron
C. Archibald MacLeish
D. Alexander Pushkin

3. Who was the author of the 1988

book, Being a Woman, Fulfilling
Your Femininity and Finding
Love?
A. Dr. Joyce Brothers
B. Dr. Toni Grant
C. Ann Landers
D. Dr. Ruth Westheimer
4. What kind of note are you
writing when you write a
"bread-and-butter" note?
A. I'm sorry

5. The last letter of the Greek

alphabet is what?
A. alpha
B. omega
C. upsilon
D. zeta
6. Charles Dickens did not write
which one of the following
books?
A. Barchester Towers
B. Dombey and Son
C. Great Expectations
D. Hard Times
7. Which author wrote the poem
that begins with "When I was
one-and-twenty/I heard a wise
man say"?
A. Robert Browning
B. Lewis Carroll
C. A. E. Housman
D. Rudyard Kipling
8. Of these four poets, which one
was male.
A. Emily Dickinson
B. Joyce Kilmer
C. Amy Lowell
D. Alice Duer Miller
9. According to the poem The Iliad,
who or what was inside the
Trojan Horse?
A. Greek Soldiers
B. Trojan soldiers

C. horses
D. nothing
10.Where did the original Jezebel
(shameless hussy) first appear?
A. the Bible
B. a Charles Dickens story
C. a Shakespearean play
D. a silent film
11.Who was the author of the 1978
bestseller The Ends of Power?
A. John Dean
B. John Ehrlichman
C. H. R. Haldeman
D. Gordon Liddy
12.Robert Herrick dedicated his
poem that begins, "Gather ye
rosebuds while ye may", to
whom?
A. farmers
B. his wife
C. the king of England
D. virgins
13.Who was Hannibal Hamlin?
A. a character in Mark Twain's
The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn
B. a character on the TV series
The A Team
C. a vice president under
Abraham Lincoln.
D. the Pied Piper" of a children's
story
14.Which of these titles were not a
book written by Dr. Seuss?
A. The Cat in the Hat

B. The Frog in the Bog

C. Hop on Pop
D. Hunches in Bunches
15."Life is real! Life is earnest!"
was the beginning of a poem
written by whom?
A. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
B. Walt Whitman
C. William Wordsworth
16.In At the Earth's Core and other
novels, what is the name of the
underground continent 500
miles beneath the earth's
surface?
A. Morlock
B. Ozymandia
C. Pellucidar
17."A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of
Bread--and Thou" was a line
written by whom?
A. Elizabeth Barrett Browning
B. Edward Fitzgerald
C. William Wordsworth
18.Which of the following books
would introduce you to the
crafty pirate Long John Silver?
A. Captains Courageous
B. Kidnapped
C. Treasure Island
D. Robinson Caruso
19. "All is for the best in the best of
all possible worlds" is a line
from what?
A. Shakespeare's The Merchant
of Venice

B. Beckett's Waiting for Godot

C. Voltaire's Candide
D. none of the above

18.C. Treasure Island

19.C. Voltaire's Candide
20.B. Quasimodo

20.What was the real name of the

Hunchback of Notre Dame?
A. Jean Valjean
B. Quasimodo
C. Vincent

ANSWERS
1. C. suspensive hyphenation
2. A. Jacques Brel
3. B. Dr. Toni Grant
4. B. Thank you
5. B. omega
6. A. Barchester Towers
7. C. A. E. Housman
8. B. Joyce Kilmer
9. A. Greek Soldiers
10.A. the Bible
11.D. Gordon Liddy
12.D. virgins
13.D. the Pied Piper" of a children's
story
14.B. The Frog in the Bog
15.A. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
16.C. Pellucidar
17.B. Edward Fitzgerald

21.A. Jacques Brel

1.
What is the name of Dr. Seuss's
egg-hatching elephant?
2. Who was Clark Kent's high
school sweetheart?
3. What novel contains the longest
sentence in literature?
4. What famous book begins:
Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff,
puff?
5. What was the first published
Sherlock Holmes story written
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?
6. To whom did Herman Melville
dedicate his novel, Moby Dick?
7. What was the name of the
girlfriend of Felix the Cat?
8. Under what assumed name did
Oscar Wilde live out the last
three years of his life, in
"France?
9. What was Scarlett O'Hara's real
first name?
10.Who was the first writer to
incorporate himself?
11.How many years did Robinson
Crusoe spend shipwrecked on
his island?
12.The title of what artist's painting
was used to name the Blue

Rider (Blaue Reiter) school of

German expressionist painters?
13.George G. Moppet was the
father of what comic strip
character?
14.What one word was
intentionally left out of the
movie version of Mario Puzo's
novel, "The Godfather". even
though this word was the
working title of the book?

highest-grossing movies of the

mid-70's. Under what name did
it eventually terrify the reading
and film going public?
23.Who wrote the story upon which
Alfred Hitchcock based his 1963
suspense film The Birds?
24.What famous American writer
was granted a patent for a bestselling book that contained no
words?

15.Ernest Hemingway once wrote

that a man must do four things
in his life to demonstrate his
manhood. What were they?

25.Where will you find a 24-foot

long, 3,500-pound aluminum
lipstick tube mounted on a
caterpillar tractor tread?

16.In the comic strips, what was

the name of Mandrake the
Magician's giant partner?

26.What famous American poet

was a West Point cadet for two
weeks, but was forced to leave
after failing arithmetic and
grammar?

17.Where did Samuel Clemens get

the idea for his pseudonym,
Mark Twain?
18.What was the name of the pig
leader in George Orwell's
Animal Farm?
19.Tess Trueheart is the wife of
what comic strip character?
20.In the Little Orphan Annie comic
strip, what was the name of
Daddy Warbucks's Giant
bodyguard who wore a turban?
21.What comic strip character was
named after heavyweight
boxing champion James J.
Jeffries?
22.The Terror of the Monster was
an early title for a best-selling
novel which inspired one of the

27.The Emerald City was the

working title of which classic
novel?
Answers to Free Trivia Quiz
1. Horton.
2. Lana Lang.
3. Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo,
with 823 words.
4. The Little Engine that Could.
5. A Study In Scarlet, in 1887.
6. Nathanial Hawthorne.
7. Phyllis.
8. Sebastian Melmoth.
9. Katie.

10.Edgar Rice Burroughs, the

creator of Tarzan, who became
a corporation in 1923.

20.Punjab.

11.24.

22.Jaws.

12.Russian Wassily Kandinsky.

23.Daphne du Maurier, best known

for Rebecca.

13.Little Lulu.
14."Mafia".
15.Plant a tree, fight a bull, write a
book, and have a son.
16.Lothar.
17.It was the river call used by
boatmen on the Mississippi to
signify two fathoms of water.
18.Napoleon.
19.Dick Tracy.

21.Jeff, of Mutt and Jeff.

24.Mark Twain. It was a Self-Pasting

Scrapbook containing blank
pages coated with a gum
veneer.
25.On the Yale University campus
in New Haven, Connecticut-- it's
a sculpture donated by pop
artist Claes Oldenburg.
26.Carl Sandburg, in 1899,
27.The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.