Weekly Quiz #3
A free weekly 20-question general knowledge quiz
Welcome to the third Weekly Quiz!
A huge thank you to the 75(!) of you who have already subscribed to Quiz Notes! I hope you’re enjoying it so far and getting some value from it. I’m certainly enjoying writing it.
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As always, we’re aiming for interesting questions that could come up in future quizzes, across a wide range of difficulties and topics: new stuff, traditional quiz topic areas, the “I should know this but I don’t” type questions.
Questions
In the news
Which 25-year-old Australian, holder of the 200m freestyle world record and four Olympic gold medals, announced her retirement from swimming last week?
María Corina Machado was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize last week, “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of” which country?
According to a recent report, which Caribbean island territory now generates around 47% of its annual income from domain name registrations, thanks to an increasingly popular top-level domain country code?
Which Chinese fast-food chain, the world’s largest by number of stores, is set to open its first US location in New York City? It specialises in ice cream and tea-based drinks.
Which small African country qualified for their first ever FIFA World Cup by defeating Eswatini 3-0 last week? The Blue Sharks, as their team is known, will be the smallest nation by land area to feature at the tournament, and the second-smallest by population, after Iceland in 2018.
October 16 saw the premiere of the third season of which Netflix series starring Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, newly appointed US ambassador to the UK?
Last month, the widely anticipated release of which indie video game sequel caused digital storefronts including Steam and the Nintendo eShop to crash? The game takes place after the events of its 2017 predecessor, continuing the story of Hornet in the kingdom of Pharloom.
Mixed Bag
Which city was the third to host the Modern Olympic Games, after Athens and Paris?
Dying in May this year, Loretta Swit was nominated for 10 consecutive Emmy Awards, winning twice, for her portrayal of Margaret ‘Hot Lips’ Houlihan on which television series?
Which chemical element has the highest thermal conductivity, highest electrical conductivity, and highest reflectivity of any metal?
Ptah and Sekhmet were husband and wife deities in the religion of which ancient civilisation?
Author Joan Didion named her daughter Quintana Roo, after the easternmost state of which country?
In the acronym REM, referring to a stage of sleep, what word is represented by the letter E?
The current and the most recent former prime minister of New Zealand both share what first name?
Which sauce is missing from this list of the five ‘mother’ sauces of French cuisine? Béchamel, espagnole, hollandaise, ______, velouté.
Pictures
This recently popular style of chocolate, containing pistachio-tahini cream and kadayif, is named after which Middle Eastern city?
This is the Amphitheatre of El Jem, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the best-preserved Roman ruins in the world. It is located in which North African country?
This is the flag of which autonomous region, which will become an independent country on September 1, 2027?
This panel contains the titular character of which comic strip, created by Brant Parker and Johnny Hart and running since 1964?
These are examples of which musical synthesiser instrument, whose name comes from the Japanese words for ‘sound’ and ‘hand’? Notes are produced from the head of the instrument, and the ribbon controller on the stem is used to control the pitch.
And that’s it for this week’s quiz! I hope you enjoyed it.
Answers
As always, I’ll include a little bit of extra info with the answers, which helps me anchor the relevant information in the question in richer context, and thus remember answers that I missed when they come up next time!
Ariarne Titmus. She won gold in Tokyo in the 200m and 400m freestyle, and gold again in the 400m in Paris, beating Katie Ledecky and Summer McIntosh on the way to becoming the first Australian woman since Dawn Fraser to win back-to-back gold medals in the same event.
Venezuela. Machado won the 2023 primary for the Unitary Platform by a landslide and was a candidate for the 2024 presidential election, but was disqualified from running. Former diplomat Edmundo González was the eventual candidate, and was widely viewed as having won the election, but Venezuelan authorities announced without evidence that incumbent Nicolás Maduro had won. Gonzalez and Machado were joint winners of the 2024 Sakharov Prize.
Anguilla. The British Overseas Territory with a population of around 15,000 is owner of the extremely popular top-level domain .ai, and is benefiting from the AI tech boom. It’s forecast that they receive around 1,500 new .ai domain registrations every day and will reach 1 million by November.
Mixue Ice Cream & Tea. Mixue (roughly pronounced mi-shwuh) operates 46,479 stores as of December 31, 2024, with around 41,500 of them in China and 2,600 in Indonesia, with others in Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, and two in Sydney (World Square - below - and Chatswood). The chain is known for its brightly coloured menu and range of offerings under $1 in Asia.
Cape Verde (Cabo Verde). The government declared a half-day holiday across the country so people could watch the match against Eswatini.
The Diplomat. Keri Russell was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series at the Emmy Awards in 2024 and 2025 for her performance as the highly competent, savvy and slightly dishevelled Kate Wyler. The show is great fun, as is Rufus Sewell as her charming and self-absorbed husband Hal.
Hollow Knight: Silksong. Published by Australian indie developer Team Cherry, both Hollow Knight (2017) and its sequel received critical acclaim. Within three days of its release on September 4, Silksong had over 5 million players.
St. Louis. The 1904 Olympics in St. Louis introduced the current standard format of gold, silver and bronze medals for first, second and third place1. At the time, St. Louis was the fourth-largest city in the USA, behind New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. In the same year, the city hosted the Louisiana Purchase Expedition, otherwise known as the St. Louis World’s Fair.
M*A*S*H*. The comedy drama following the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital is one of the highest-rated shows in US television history. Its finale episode, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, was the most-watched single television episode in US history at the time.
Silver. Outside of its use as a precious metal in jewellery and silverware, it has many uses, including as an antibiotic coating in medical devices and wound dressings, in solar panels, electrodes and conductors, chemical catalysts, and film photography.
Ancient Egypt. Ptah was considered a creator god who conceived the world and brought it into being through speaking it. He is also considered the father of the sage Imhotep. Sekhmet was considered the daughter of the sun god, Ra, and sometimes given the epithet “the eye of Ra”. She was said to breathe fire and was typically depicted with the head of a lioness.
Mexico. Didion and her husband chanced upon the name while looking at a map of Mexico. Quintana Roo is located on the Yucatán Peninsula, and its largest city is Cancún.
Eye. The rapid eye movement, or REM, phase of sleep is when most dreaming occurs and when the brain is most active during sleep.
Christopher. Former Air New Zealand CEO Christopher Luxon is the current prime minister. His National Party defeated Chris Hipkins of the Labour Party in 2023. Hipkins was prime minister from January to November 2023, after he succeeded Jacinda Ardern as party leader upon her resignation.
Tomato (tomate). The sauce tomate is made with tomato, salted pork breast, white stock, and a mirepoix of carrot, onion and thyme.
Dubai. Dubai chocolate is all the rage on social media. It was invented in 2021 by British-Egyptian engineer Sarah Hamouda and Filipino chef Nouel Catis Omamalin. The idea first arose when Hamouda was pregnant and was craving a combination of chocolate, pistachio, tahini, and knafeh, which is a Middle Eastern dessert made largely from kadayif (shredded filo pastry).
Tunisia. It is the largest colosseum in North Africa, built entirely of stone blocks and capable of holding around 35,000 spectators.
Bougainville. In a 2019 non-binding referendum, 98% of the autonomous region within Papua New Guinea voted for independence. While PNG prime minister James Marape has indicated his support, the independence agreement has not yet been ratified by the PNG parliament.
The Wizard of Id. The comic strip follows characters in the medieval kingdom of Id. Jim Henson produced a TV pilot of the series in 1969, but it was not pursued any further.
Otamatone. The instrument is popular online and is frequently used to create cover songs, such as this excellent rendition of Evanescence’s Bring Me To Life:
In 1896, winners were given a silver medal and runners up were given a copper medal. In 1900, in many sports, winners received cups or trophies instead of medals. Those sports who did award medals sometimes awarded silver for first. 1900 is also the only Olympic Games to feature rectangular medals.