Block E Questions : General Knowledge

1. Which rum-producing district of Cuba gives its name to a cocktail, originally made with rum and lime juice, often with the addition of fruit?
2. What kind of architectural structure provides a link between Brunelleschi, Buckminster Fuller, Kubla Khan and Peter Mandelson?
3. In which commonwealth country will you find the regions of Marlborough, West Coast and Thames Valley?
4. Which device first came into use during world war one, and was designed to detonate by means of a hydrostatic valve; early forms consisted of large cylinders of TNT that was rolled or catapulted from a ship’s stern?
5. “The unlawful killing of a reasonable creature under the queen’s peace….”; which three words complete this definition of murder?
6. Formally known as Asia Minor, what name is now more commonly used for the peninsula of land that constitutes the Asian region of Turkey?
7. From the Greek for ‘living a day’, what is the collective term for objects that are valid or useful only for a short time, especially printed items?
8. What word denotes: a short descriptive essay or character sketch; a photograph or portrait with the background faded, and a decorative design on a book’s title page, traditionally of vines, from the French word for which the term is derived?
9. What action is performed in the traditional Maori greeting known as a ‘Hongi’?
10. In Bridge, what term means to play a card of another suit while holding a card of the suit that was led, resulting in a penalty?
11. Which cathedral in Cambridgeshire is surmounted by an octagonal tower, known as the lantern tower, erected in the 14^th century to replace the original Norman tower which had collapsed?
12. What number links: the warring Chinese states that followed the demise of the Han Dynasty in China; the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, and the district of Hertfordshire centred around Rickmansworth?
13. Who was the last man to walk on the surface of the moon?
14. Which organization has as its motto words adapted from Isaiah: ”Nation shall speak peace unto nation”?
15. With its origins in the Kamakura period around the 13^th century, the code of conduct adopted by the Samurai class of Japan is known by which term, meaning “way of the warrior”?
16. Which word can mean both a scree slope formed from frost-shattered rocks, and the ankle bone?
17. Which lake of the Great Rift Valley is the deepest in Africa, and has ports in Burundi and Zambia?
18. Having lost the right, in a contest with Odysseus, to wear the armour of Achilles, which hero of the Trojan War slaughtered a herd of sheep in a fit of madness before he fell upon the sword given to him by Hector?
19. The North Italian provinces of Emilia and Lombardy produce 2 distinct kinds of which hard, granular cheese?
20. In the UK, the rate of interest used by commercial banks as a basis for the rates they charge their customers is called the base rate; by what name is it known is it in the US?

Answers

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