My Pub Quiz

An exercise in applied quizzology

Recently I was enlisted to host my university’s economics department pub quiz. I had never hosted a pub quiz before, and I thought this would be a good opportunity to apply what my friend Neil Scott calls pub quizzology.¹ 

Quizzes are my largest source of non-work-related social interaction. Among the problems I have with most pub quizzes is how often they contain questions that I don’t even want to know the answer to. Well-written trivia gives you the sense that you ought to know it, if only you had the time to read and watch and live more. 

My pub quiz had five rounds: Economics, history, picture round, geography, and culture. Another overrated feature of your run-of-the-mill pub quiz is the music round, which more often than not is beset with technical problems. Some of the questions are dead easy, while others are quite obscure unless you have studied economics at university. 

The scoring was also a bit of a fudge: originally every question was worth one point, but then we started giving partial credit when overall scores in the first few rounds were too low (oops). Each correct identification in the picture round was worth two points. I include the answers at the end. 

The winner of my quiz, by the way, was my friend Sean, competing by himself (!).

Economics

1. “Everything reminds Milton [Friedman] of the money supply. Well, everything reminds me of sex, but I keep it out of the paper.” These are the words of which economist? 

2. Only three women have ever won the Nobel Prize in Economics. Name them all.

3. “I’ve always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted.” These are the words of which former Chief Economist of the World Bank?

4. ‘The Nature of the Firm’ and ‘The Problem of Social Cost’ are the two most famous papers by which British economist?

5. What name is given to the critique that it is naive to predict the effects of changes in economic policy entirely on the basis of relationships observed in historical data?

6. Which economist argued in his book Progress and Poverty in 1879 for replacing most taxes with a tax on the value of land? His ideas later inspired the creation of the board game Monopoly.    

7. “There has never been a famine in a democracy” is an observation often attributed (somewhat misleadingly) to which economist and philosopher? 

8. Which African country uses the cedi as its currency?

9. Which Chancellor of the Exchequer brought Britain back on the gold standard in 1925? (Clue: “He has been widely regarded as the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer in British History… including by himself.”)

10. Which German philosopher coauthored the Communist Manifesto with Karl Marx? He financed Marx’s writings with profits from the textile mills.

11. What system of international monetary management was agreed upon in a hotel in New Hampshire?

12. Without using a calculator, if an economy is growing at 7% by year, by how many multiples will it be larger in 30 years? Round to the nearest integer. 

13. The Impossible Trinity of international economics states that a country cannot have which three things? It is also known as the Mundell-Fleming trilemma. 

14. Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises are associated with what school of thought within economics? 

15. The Kuznets curve is an inverse U-shaped relationship that states that which quantity will rise and then fall again as countries get richer?

History

1. Between which two countries were the so-called Cod Wars of the 20th century? 

2. Who was the prime minister of the UK during the Suez Crisis?

3. Who led a coup in 1961 to become the leader of South Korea?² 

4. When the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who was the president of the United States?

5. The Velvet Revolution toward the end of the 20th century ended one-party rule in which country?

6. In which major conference of World War II did Stalin, Truman, Churchill and Attlee meet to decide how to administer Germany, which had just agreed to unconditional surrender?

   a. Tehran Conference

   b. Yalta Conference

   c. Moscow Conference

   d. Potsdam Conference

7. The Blackshirts were a paramilitary organisation in which country?

8. The First Gulf War started in response to Iraq doing what?

9. What was the name of the last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, ending with the founding of the Republic of China in 1912?

10. The restoration of Imperial rule in Japan in 1868 is known by what name? It was followed by a period of rapid industrialisation.

11. In what year was the first modern Olympic games?

12. Which pre-Columbian empire built the city of Machu Picchu?

13. The Peloponnesian War was fought between which two ancient Greek city-states?

14. Which English monarch was executed in 1649, leading to the establishment of the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell?

15. Which Portuguese explorer was the first European to sail directly from Europe to India?

Interlude: Picture round

Geography

1. In which city would you find the Taj Mahal?

2. Which two countries joined the European Union in 2007?

3. Legend has it that so long as monkeys remain in this place, it will be under British rule. Where is it?

4. In which country are the Dolomite Mountains?

5. A doubly landlocked country is one that is landlocked entirely by countries that are themselves landlocked. There are only two in the world. Name them both.

6. Into which body of water does the Ural River flow?

7. The summit of Mount Chimborazo is the point on the Earth’s surface which is farthest from its centre. What country is it in?

8. Which country has the longest official name in English? 

9. Paul Kagame has been the president of which African country since 2000?

10. What was the capital city of Yugoslavia?

11. Aalborg, Aarhus, and Odense are major cities in which EU member state?

12. Santiago is the capital of which country?

13. Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade are all located on the banks of which river?

14. In which Chinese province is the city of Shenzhen?

15. What is the largest island in Scotland, by surface area?

Culture

1. “I really, really hoped I wouldn’t die.” These words, spoken by Colin Farrell, portraying hitman Ray, are the final line from which 2008 film by Martin McDonagh?

2. The 2019 film Parasite was the first film not in English to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Who was it directed by?

3. “Have you ever heard of a thing called fluoridation of water? Do you realise that fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous Communist plot we have ever had to face?” Sterling Hayden speaks these words in which Stanley Kubrick film from 1964?

4. Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom are the two main characters in which piece of modernist literature?

5. The Bell Jar is the only novel written by which American poet?

6. La Pietà is a sculpture in Saint Peter’s Basilica carved by which Renaissance artist?

7. In which cult classic does Ewan McGregor deliver the following monologue: “It’s shite being Scottish! We’re the lowest of the low! The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash, that was shat into civilization.” 

8. According to Wikipedia, what song has the most plays of all time on Spotify? I will give you a point if you get either in the top two.

9. Giant Steps is a jazz standard composed by which virtuoso saxophonist? 

10. Which Japanese filmmaker directed Ikiru, Seven Samurai, and The Hidden Fortress?

11. The Six Nations is a major European rugby union tournament. List all those nations.

12. Who recently defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi to become the world chess champion? (Note it is NOT Magnus Carlsen)

13. How many times have the Olympics been hosted in the Southern Hemisphere?

14. Jin, Suga, and J-Hope are all members of which band?

15. Which classic rock song with a single-word title written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon was inspired by a love story that originated in 7th-century Arabia? 

Answers

Economics

1. Robert Solow

2. Elinor Ostrom, Esther Duflo, and Claudia Goldin 

3. Larry Summers 

4. Ronald Coase

5. The Lucas critique

6. Henry George

7. Amartya Sen

8. Ghana

9. Winston Churchill

10. Friedrich Engels 

11. The Bretton Woods system

12. 8 (the ‘rule of 70’, ‘rule of 72’, and actual answer all round to 8)

13. A fixed exchange rate, free capital movement, and sovereign (independent) monetary policy

14. Austrian

15. Inequality

History

1. Iceland and the UK

2. Anthony Eden

3. Park Chung Hee

4. Harry Truman

5. Czechoslovakia 

6. Potsdam Conference

7. Italy

8. Invading Kuwait

9. The Qing dynasty (do not accept ‘Qin’)

10. The Meiji Restoration

11. 1896

12. Incas

13. Athens and Sparta

14. Charles I

15. Vasco de Gama

Picture round

Going left to right, and from top to bottom: John Maynard Keynes, Lee Kuan Yew, Indira Gandhi, Christine Lagarde, Friedrich Hayek, Michael Lewis, Bob Geldof

Geography 

1. Agra

2. Bulgaria and Romania 

3. Gibraltar 

4. Italy

5. Uzbekistan and Liechtenstein

6. The Caspian Sea

7. Ecuador 

8. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

9. Rwanda

10. Belgrade

11. Denmark

12. Chile

13. Danube

14. Guangdong

15. Lewis and Harris (this is one island, not two!)

Culture

1. In Bruges

2. Bong Joon-ho

3. Dr Strangelove

4. Ulysses 

5. Sylvia Plath

6. Michelangelo

7. Trainspotting

8. Blinding Lights by the Weeknd OR Shape of You by Ed Sheeran 

9. John Coltrane 

10. Akira Kurosawa 

11. England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales

12. Ding Liren 

13. Three

14. BTS

15. Layla

1. “Despite all your academic achievements, you will probably still end up being outsmarted by three middle-aged postmen.”

2. Another note: My university has a lot of international students, so I tried to balance out the advantages that British people had in the culture round with some giveaways to East Asian students.