These questions were written to be asked in Toronto on 2017-03-06,
and should be interpreted accordingly.
On each question you may give up to two answers, but if you give
both a right answer and a wrong answer, there is a small penalty.
Please post all your answers to the newsgroup in a single followup,
based only on your own knowledge. (In your answer posting, quote
the questions and place your answer below each one.) I will reveal
the correct answers in about 3 days.
All questions were written by members of 5 Easy Pieces and are
used here by permission, but have been reformatted and may have
been retyped and/or edited by me. For further information see
my 2016-11-26 companion posting on "Questions from the Canadian
Inquisition (QFTCI*)".
* Game 7, Round 7 - Geography - North American Transit Systems
We name a transit system in the US or Canada and give some clues;
you tell us the main city it serves. Answer do not repeat, and
you'll find all of them on the following handout list:
Albany | Las Vegas | San Francisco
Atlanta | Metropolis | San Jose
Austin | Miami | Saskatoon
Calgary | Montreal | Seattle
Chicago | New York | St. Louis
Dallas | Orlando | Toronto
Edmonton | Ottawa | Tulsa
Houston | Portland | Vancouver
Indianapolis | San Diego | Winnipeg
1. Tri-Met: It was created in 1969 and serves the metropolitan
area of this US city. It includes a light rail system that
can take you from the highly rated airport to downtown in
35 minutes for a fare of $2.50. Name the city.
2. Capital Metro: It operates buses and a commuter rail service in
this eclectic southwestern US city. A proposed billion-dollar
light rail project was turned down by local voters in 2014.
Name the city.
3. SkyTrain: It is the metropolitan rail service for this city.
It has about 80 km of track and its trains are fully automated.
Some of its 53 stops include Waterfront, Main Street--Science
World, and Commercial--Broadway, which are in the main city.
Name the main city served by SkyTrain.
4. BART: This sprawling regional system includes rapid transit
and subways. It serves cities in three neighboring counties,
as well as the main city where it operates. On weekdays it has
420,000 average daily riders. Name the main city served by BART.
5. MARTA: Formed in 1971 as a bus service, it now includes a rapid
transit system that is the eighth-largest in the United States by
ridership. However, a lack of transit expansion since the 1980s
has resulted in a significant rise in gridlock in this city.
Name it.
6. CTrain: This light-rail transit system began operations in 1981.
It has 60 km of track and has been considered a success.
A large percentage of commuters use the system to get to work
in the city's downtown. Name the city.
7. Metrorail: This 40 km elevated rapid-transit rail system is found
in a popular US tourist-destination city. It is unlikely,
though, that many of those tourists use it to get around the
city or to surrounding communities such as Liberty City or
Broward County. Name the main city.
8. "The Loop" refers to a 3 km stretch of elevated railway in this
city's downtown. It has 8 stations and its tracks are used by
various lines that make up this city's "L" system. What city?
9. Valley Transportation Authority: It was established in 1995 and
operates 3 light rail lines, bus lines, and a para-transit line.
It is a regional US transit service. It also has a seasonal
vintage trolley service, which operates downtown in the main
city for this transit authority -- a fast-growing city that
just passed 1,000,000 in population. Name it.
10. MetroLink: Construction began in 1990 for the light rail
system in this city, which has the 19th-largest metropolitan
area by population in the United States. Within 4 years a link
was finished to Lambert International Airport. The system has
expanded slowly because of a lack of federal funds. It is
operated by the Bi-State Development Agency. Name the main
city served by this transit system.
* Game 7, Round 8 - Literature - Political Novels
1. In 1959, US author Richard Condon published this political
thriller featuring a domineering mother, a sleeper assassin son,
and the would-be assassin's army buddy from the Korean War.
What is the novel's title?
2. Robert Penn Warren published this Pulitzer-prizewinning novel
in 1946, about backwoods Louisiana lawyer Willie Stark who
through a series of populist measures and corrupt manipulations
becomes governor of the state, only to be assassinated.
Name the novel.
3. Robert Coover's "The Public Burning", published in 1977, is set
in 1953 and features real-life characters such as Richard
Nixon and Senator Joseph McCarthy, as well as a foul-mouthed
personification of Uncle Sam. What true-life event in American
history is central to its plot?
4. Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel "The Jungle" is largely set in
Chicago and is a scathing indictment of the health violations
and unsanitary conditions of what US industry?
5. Soviet writer Yevgeny Zamyatin had this dystopian novel
first published in English in 1924. It apparently had a
profound influence on both Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World"
(though Huxley denied this) as well as George Orwell's "Nineteen
Eighty-Four". What is the English-language title of Zamyatin's
novel?
6. In 1976 Gore Vidal published this novel concerning, among other
things, the US presidential election that pitted Democrat
Samuel J. Tilden against Republican Rutherford B. Hayes.
Name the novel.
For the last four questions, in each case name the *author* of
the novel.
7. "The Children of Men", published in 1992, is set in the England
of 2021 and focuses on a world where mass infertility has become
the fate of humans.
8. This Nobel-prizewinning author of "Babbitt" turned to American
politics in the Great Depression and published the 1935 novel
"It Can't Happen Here". The book features a character named
Berzelius "Buzz" Windrip, a politician who defeats Franklin
Roosevelt and is elected president of the United States after
fomenting fear and promising drastic economic and social reforms
while promoting a return to patriotism and "traditional" values.
(Sound familiar?)
9. "The Plot Against America", published in 2004, is an alternative
history with a great deal of politics in it. In the novel,
Franklin Roosevelt is defeated for reelection as president in
1940 by aviation hero Charles Lindbergh, who has campaigned on
a populist/fascist platform. (Sound familiar?) The central
characters of the book, a Jewish-American family living in
Newark, New Jersey, are justifiably terrified about what
Lindbergh's presidency may mean.
10. "The Iron Heel", a dystopian novel published in 1908, is often
considered the first of its kind. The novel was written by one
of the most popular and famous American writers of the early
20th century and chronicles the rise of oligarchic tyrannies in
the United States and other parts of the world.
--
Mark Brader | "Follow my posts and choose the opposite
m...@vex.net | of what I use. That generally works here."
Toronto | --Tony Cooper
My text in this article is in the public domain.