Saturday 31 December 2011

2012 quiz of the year

If you've made it through Christmas without being subjected to a seemingly interminable quiz poring over every conceivable aspect of 2011 in forensic detail, congratulations.  Really.  You deserve some sort of medal, or perhaps even a broadsheet newspaper subscription.

Trivial ritual and reminiscence is all very well, but I'd prefer to look forward (if only to sustain the rather tenuous premise of this introduction).  So I've prepared this rather tricky little batch of 12 questions about the coming year instead.  If you feel like submitting your answers and haven't cheated, you can email them to me - there might* even be a small prize!  Bribing me to procure hints is positively encouraged.  If that seems far too much like hard work**, the answers will almost certainly*** appear here in 10 days or so.   Good luck!


1.   Which central American civilisation is commonly believed to have predicted that the world would end on 21 December 2012?

2.   Which undeservedly bestselling and undeniably ludicrous work of fiction published in 2009 centres around that prediction?

3.   Why was the film '2012' banned in North Korea?

4.   Which star of '2012' had previously played an illegal immigrant forced to harvest organs in a London hotel in his first major film role?

5.   2012 marks the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing's birth.  What is the Turing test?

6.   Queen Elizabeth II will celebrate her Diamond Jubilee in 2012 (assuming that she doesn't kick the bucket before 6 February).  Which date has been designated as a special bank holiday to mark the occasion?

7.   Who is the only other British monarch to have celebrated a Diamond Jubilee?

8.   London will host the Summer Olympic Games for the third time in 2012.  In which other years did London host the games?

9.   Which three other cities have hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice?

10.   Which popular "historical science fiction action-adventure" video game series featuring the character Desmond Miles takes place primarily in 2012?

11.   How many Friday the 13ths will there be in 2012?

12.   Which British author would have celebrated his 200th birthday on 7 February 2012?


* (but there won't)
** (because you're incredibly lazy)
*** (because I'm incredibly lazy)

3 comments:

  1. Just in case you want to borrow the quiz or check how you did, here are those answers I promised...

    1. Mayans / Mesoamerican
    2. 'The Lost Symbol' by Dan Brown
    3. 2012 will be the 100th anniversary of the birth of the nation's founder, and the state would not permit such a negative portrayal of the year
    4. Chiwetel Ejiofor
    5. A test of a machine's capacity to exhibit intelligent behaviour
    6. Tuesday 5 June
    7. Queen Victoria
    8. 1908, 1948
    9. Paris, Los Angeles, Athens
    10. Assassin's Creed
    11. Three - January, April, July
    12. Charles Dickens

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lovely quiz, thank you. Knew more than I thought I would...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you for playing! Feel free to liberate it should the need arise... or to request future quiz topics...

    ReplyDelete