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By Credo Reference, on March 19th, 2010
All the questions in this week’s brainteaser refer to a group of twelve things or people – also known as a dozen.
1. What is a “daily dozen”?
2. How many are there in a “baker’s dozen”?
3. Which hero of classical mythology was renowned for completing twelve seemingly impossible tasks, which included cleaning the Augean stables and killing the nine-headed Hydra?
4. What is the date of Twelfth Night?
5. Name the war film (1967), starring Lee Marvin and Telly Savalas, about a squad of 12 military prisoners who are challenged to perform a suicidal mission in occupied France during the Second World War.
6. Who invented the method of musical composition called the twelve-tone system or twelve-note system in about 1921?
7. Which phrase containing the word “dozen” describes a situation in which a choice must be made between alternatives that are almost or effectively the same?
8. What was the title of the book and film about the twelve children of Frank B. Gilbreth Sr. & Lillian E. Gilbreth?
9. Name nine of the twelve signs of the zodiac.
10. What is the word for a polygon having twelve angles and twelve sides?
Find the answers here.
By Credo Reference, on March 12th, 2010
This week’s brainteaser is all about quotations – the people who originated them, what they said, the people or things they described, etc.
- What is the name for the law which states that “If there is a wrong way to do something, then someone will do it” or “If anything can go wrong, it will”?
- Which British poet wrote: “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever”? Was it Keats, Shelley or Gray?
- What was Shakespeare referring to in “Othello” when he wrote: “It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on”?
- Fill the gap in this quotation from a 1918 speech by David Lloyd George; “What is our task? To make Britain a fit country for…what?…to live in”.
- Which British conductor said “The English may not like music – but they absolutely love the noise it makes”?
- In the 1933 film “I’m No Angel”, which actress said “Beulah, peel me a grape”?
- Complete this quotation from Kingsley Amis’s “Lucky Jim”, about someone recovering from a hangover: “He resolved, having done it once, never to move his…what?…again”.
- Which French author wrote “L’Enfer, c’est les Autres” (Hell is other people)?
- Which British prime minister was Peter Cook impersonating in “Beyond the Fringe” in 1961 when he said “We exchanged many frank words in our respective languages”?
- Which American said: “A good newspaper…is a nation talking to itself”?
Find the answers here.
By Credo Reference, on March 5th, 2010
A biography is a description of someone’s life. If it is written by the person himself or herself, it is called an autobiography. See if you can answer these questions about people’s life stories.
1. James Boswell is best known for his “Life” of which person?
2. “The Greatest” was the 1975 autobiography of which world-champion boxer?
3. Virginia Woolf’s “Flush” was a biography of what sort of animal owned by Elizabeth Barrett Browning?
4. Complete this verse by Edmund Clerihew Bentley:
The Art of Biography
Is different from Geography.
Geography is about Maps
But Biography is about…
5. Who wrote biographies of J. R. R. Tolkien, W. H. Auden and Benjamin Britten, as well as books called “The Inklings” and “Geniuses Together”?
6. “Brother Ray” is the autobiography of which American singer, written with David Ritz?
7. How did Lytton Strachey describe four Victorians in the title of his 1918 book of short biographies of them?
8. Who wrote the autobiographical novel “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” extracted from a work called “Stephen Hero”?
9. Charles Laughton starred in a 1933 film about “The Private Life” of which English king?
10. Anne Stevenson’s “Bitter Fame” is a notoriously controversial biography of which of her close contemporaries?
Find the answers here.
By Credo Reference, on February 26th, 2010
Do your receive the “Credo Reference Content Update” – a monthly email about what is new and updated in Credo Reference? If you do, you know that Credo has recently added more than 2,000 images from The National Gallery, London. (If you don’t get our Content Update, you can sign up here.)
To celebrate, here’s a brainteaser about the National Gallery and some of its pictures.
 The Hay Wain 1. In 1821, who painted “The Hay Wain”, which is in the National Gallery.
2. The National Gallery has a painting called “Sunflowers” – one of several of this subject produced in 1888 by which artist?
3. In which London square is the National Gallery?
4. Who famously painted water-lilies at his garden at Giverny?
5. When an extension was proposed to the National Gallery, Charles, Prince of Wales, described it as putting “on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend” a monstrous…what?
6. What kind of animal was “Whistlejacket”, painted by Stubbs in about 1762?
7. “Marriage A-la-Mode” was a series of satirical engravings about the upper echelons of society made by which artist?
8. Was the picture called “Les Grandes Baigneuses” painted by Manet, Cezanne or Seurat?
9. Which ship, tugged to her last berth in 1838 and painted by J. M. W. Turner, was the subject of the picture voted “The Greatest Painting in Britain”?
10. An 18th-century portrait of “Mr and Mrs Andrews” is the masterpiece of which artist’s early years?
Find the answers here.
By Credo Reference, on February 19th, 2010
The Winter Olympic Games are taking place in Vancouver this year. Can you answer these questions about the Winter Olympics?
1. How often are the Winter Olympic Games held?
2. Which British pair of skaters won the Olympic ice-dance title in 1984?
3. Which sport, included for the first time at the Winter Olympics in 1998, involves riding across snow standing on a wide single ski resembling a small surf board?
4. The IOC is responsible for the summer and winter Olympics. What does the abbreviation “IOC” stand for?
5. Were the Winter Olympic Games first held in 1904, 1914 or 1924?
6. Where were the Winter Olympic Games held in 1984?
7. The luge was introduced into the Winter Olympics in 1964. “Luge” is French for what?
8. Name one of the three places where the Winter Olympics have been held twice.
9. How many people are there in a team at curling, a winter Olympic sport?
10. Which skier, known as “Le Superman” in his native France, won three gold medals in Alpine ski events at Grenoble in 1968?
By Credo Reference, on February 12th, 2010
This week: America
One of the books recently added to Credo Reference is the “Encyclopedia of Urban America”. Test your knowledge of the USA with these questions, which can all be answered from this source.
1. Name America’s first landscaped public park, created in 1853 in the center of Manhattan.
2. Which American author is best known for his second novel, “On the Road” (1957)?
3. Fiorello La Guardia was the mayor of which city from 1934 through 1945?
4. In his State of the Union message in January 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared “unconditional war” on what?
5. Louis Armstrong, America’s leading virtuoso jazz trumpeter, was born in which city?
6. P.T.Barnum was the leading showman of the nineteenth century. What was his first name?
7. Coney Island, a beach on the Atlantic Ocean, got its name from being inhabited by what?
8. Which annual prizes are given by the School of Journalism at Columbia University from a bequest of $1 million?
9. Which American painter specialises in pictures of tired old buildings and their lonely denizens – such as “Early Sunday Morning” and “Nighthawks”?
10. What name did Jean Gottmann give to an “almost continuous stretch of urban and suburban areas” extending from Maine to Maryland?
Find the answers here.
By Credo Reference, on February 5th, 2010
 This week: Airports
This week’s brainteaser is about airports.
1. Name the main airport serving London, situated west of London.
2. There is an airport and flying doctor base near Alice Springs in which country?
3. What was the former name of Kennedy International Airport in New York?
4. What is the name of the Scottish airport 2 miles NNE of Ayr?
5. At which Ugandan airport in 1976 were most of the hostages rescued who had been held aboard an Air France plane?
6. What is the name of the airport which was upgraded in the 1950s as a second London airport?
7. What is the name of Chicago’s international airport?
8. “MAD” is the airport code for which airport?
9. At which airport just outside Paris did Charles Lindbergh land after his historic nonstop flight from New York in 1927?
10. Name the airport in E Newfoundland which became a major North American terminal for flights to Europe.
Find the answers here.
Image “Airport diagram/sketch” from An Illustrated Dictionary of Aviation. See the image here.
By Credo Reference, on January 29th, 2010
 This week: One to Ten
Our brainteasers always have ten questions, but this quiz is about the numbers from one to ten. Each question or answer includes one of those numbers – but they are not in numerical order in the questions.
1. What number in Downing Street is the residence of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?
2. What is a “one-horse town”?
3. A horizontal figure of which number is the symbol for infinity in mathematics?
4. A tetrahedron is a solid figure with how many triangular faces?
5. The ancient city of Rome was built on or about how many hills?
6. A dyad is a social relationship involving how many participants?
7. In cricket, how many runs are scored by a hit which makes the ball clear the boundary without touching the ground?
8. The Three Kingdoms is a period from 220 to 581 in the history of which country?
9. In the song about the twelve days of Christmas, how many drummers were drumming?
10. “The Five” was a group of Russian composers who joined together in about 1875 to create a Russian national music. Name three of these composers.
Find the answers here.
By Credo Reference, on January 22nd, 2010
 This week: Winter
Britain and parts of the United States have been suffering a severe winter. Try to answer these questions, each of which is about winter or has an answer that includes the word “winter”.
1. What is the title of Shakespeare’s play about Leontes, who is married to Hermione and becomes consumed by an insane jealousy?
2. In the Northern Hemisphere, is the winter solstice in November, December or January?
3. Name one of the two US brothers surnamed “Winter”: one a rock musician born in 1946; the other a rhythm and blues guitarist born in 1944.
4. Were the first separate, self-contained Winter Olympic Games held in 1904, 1914 or 1924?
5. Which poet wrote the line “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind”? Was it Keats, Shelley or Wordsworth?
6. Name one of the two countries which fought the “Winter War” during the 1939-40 winter.
7. Is “Winter’ the first or last of the four violin concertos by Vivaldi called “The Four Seasons”?
8. What was the first name of the man whose first marriage was to Rebecca de Winter, the eponymous character in Daphne Du Maurier’s 1938 novel “Rebecca”?
9. In which Russian city was the Winter Palace, the former Russian imperial residence which was stormed by the Bolsheviks in November 1917?
10. Which composer wrote a song cycle called “Winter Words” based on poems by Thomas Hardy?
Find the answers here.
Image “Winter”, by Jacob Grimmer. Find it on Credo Reference: http://www.credoreference.com/entry/bridgeart/winter/7
By Credo Reference, on January 15th, 2010
 This week: Where?
This brainteaser asks where particular places or things can be found. But beware! You may find some of the questions are not as
straightforward as you might think.
1. Where is Ayers Rock or Uluru?
2. Where are the Urals?
3. Where is Guantanamo Bay?
4. Where is the Auteuil viaduct?
5. Where would you find a Plimsoll line?
6. Where would you find Gozo and Comino?
7. Where would you find Virginia Plain?
8. Where is the metatarsus?
9. Where is the Mare Orientale?
10. Where are the Islets (or Islands) of Langerhans?
Find the answers here.
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