Mark Brader:
> These questions were written to be asked in Toronto on 1998-03-02,
> and should be interpreted accordingly... For further information...
> see my 2020-06-23 companion posting on "Reposted Questions from
> the Canadian Inquisition (RQFTCI*)".
> * Game 6, Round 1 - Current Events (excerpt):
> Answer these 1998 questions if you like for fun, but for no points.
Again nobody tried these.
> 1. What proposed British constitutional change did the Queen
> endorse this week?
Gender equality in the royal succession.
That is, after the change the oldest living child of the relevant
person would inherit the throne; in the system then existing, it
was the oldest living son if there were any and the oldest living
daughter otherwise. With the agreement of the 16 relevant countries
-- the "Commonwealth realms" -- the change was finally made in 2011,
applicable only to heirs born afterwards.
Thus, among the Queen's children, Princess Anne still comes behind
her younger brothers Prince Andrew and Prince Edward; but among
Prince William's children, Princess Charlotte, born in 2015, comes
before her younger brother Prince Louis.
> 2. What did the TTC suggest was the cause of a drop in transit
> ridership during the first six weeks of 1998?
The flu. No, there wasn't a major outbreak at the time.
> I did not write either of these rounds.
> * Game 6, Round 2 - Science - Plate Tectonics
> 1. What ocean is surrounded by an area of igneous activity called
> the "Ring of Fire"?
Pacific. 4 for everyone -- Erland, Joshua, Dan Tilque, Dan Blum,
and Pete.
> 2. What volcanic island rose above the sea off Iceland in 1963?
Surtsey. 4 for Erland, Dan Tilque, and Dan Blum.
> 3. Sometimes small volcanic regions (a few hundred kilometers
> across) are found in the middle of a plate instead of at the edge
> of one -- two examples of such regions are the Hawaiian Islands
> and Yellowstone National Park. What are such regions called?
Hot spots. 4 for Dan Tilque.
In 2009, three entrants surprised me by going way off base in the
same direction as each other: they said caldera, which actually is
a crater-like volcanic formation caused by subsidence rather then
outflow -- Crater Lake is an example.
> 4. What plate """does""" Toronto sit on?
North American. (Still true.) 4 for Erland, Dan Tilque, and Pete.
> 5. Alfred Wegener proposed the hypothesis of continental drift
> in 1912. He suggested then that a supercontinent had once
> existed -- what did he call it?
Pangaea. 4 for Erland, Joshua, Dan Tilque, and Dan Blum.
> 6. When a plate begins to split apart, what feature appears?
A rift valley. I accepted "rift zone". 4 for Erland, Dan Tilque,
Dan Blum, and Pete.
> 7. A major African lake and a major Asian lake are both found in
> examples of an <answer 6> -- name either one.
Lake Tanganyika, Lake Baikal. 2 for Pete.
In 2009 I did not accept the Dead Sea; it is indeed in a rift valley,
but hardly qualified as major even before human intervention caused
it to start shrinking. Lake Baikal now has about 50 times the area
of what's left of the Dead Sea, and over 200 times the volume.
> 8. A plate that lies mostly under the Pacific Ocean off Peru
> """is""" named for a well-known early culture of South America.
> What """is""" that name?
Nazca. (Still true.) 4 for Erland, Joshua, and Dan Tilque.
> 9. When two plates collide and one slides under the edge of the
> other, this is called what?
Subduction. 4 for Dan Tilque and Dan Blum.
> 10. Canada drifts farther each year from England, the mother
> country, because of what mid-ocean process related to the motion
> of plates?
Sea-floor spreading. 4 for Dan Tilque.
> * Game 6, Round 3 - History - Ancient and Other Scripts
> In all cases, give the name of the script.
> 1. See:
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/msb/oo6/3/A.jpg
> This script was used in various forms to write many languages,
> not all of them related.
Cuneiform. 4 for Erland, Dan Tilque, and Dan Blum.
Ogham. 4 for Joshua, Dan Tilque, and Dan Blum.
> 3. See:
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/msb/oo6/3/C.jpg
> This adaptation of the Greek alphabet was used in Egypt from
> the 4th to the 9th century and is still seen today (rarely).
> Its name matched the language it was used for.
Coptic. 4 for Erland, Joshua, Dan Tilque, and Dan Blum.
Runic (runes) or Futhark. 4 for Erland, Joshua, Dan Tilque,
and Dan Blum.
> 5. See:
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/msb/oo6/3/E.jpg
> This script, found only in the Western Hemisphere, was
> """recently""" deciphered by about six people working
> cooperatively, after scholars in the field spent decades
> on the wrong track.
Maya(n). 4 for Erland, Dan Tilque, and Dan Blum.
> 6. See:
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/msb/oo6/3/F.jpg
> This script records a language last spoken in Northern and
> Central Italy about 2,000 years ago; the Emperor Claudius could
> reputedly speak and read it. We can assign sound values to
> some of the letters, but little meaning can be drawn from the
> surviving inscriptions. Again, the script is called by the
> name of the language, which is...?
Etruscan. 4 for everyone.
Phoenician. 4 for everyone.
> 8. See:
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/msb/oo6/3/H.jpg
> This script was deciphered in about 1954 by Michael Ventris.
> The language is actually Greek, even though he initially
> conjectured that it was <answer 6> -- what do we call the script?
Linear B. 4 for Erland, Joshua, Dan Tilque, and Dan Blum.
> 9. See:
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/msb/oo6/3/I.jpg
> This script was found by archaeologists at a site called
> Mohenjo-daro, now in Pakistan. It has not yet been deciphered.
> It currently goes by what name?
Indus Valley or Harappa script. 4 for Dan Tilque and Dan Blum.
> 10. See:
http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/msb/oo6/3/K.jpg
> The Rosetta Stone records the same inscription in two languages,
> using three scripts. The bottom portion of the stone is in
> Greek, the top portion is in Egyptian hieroglyphics, and here
> is most of the middle section -- written in what script?
Demotic, another way to write Egyptian. 4 for Joshua, Dan Tilque,
and Dan Blum.
The stone is in the British Museum in London. I took photo K myself.
Scores, if there are no errors:
GAME 6 ROUNDS-> 2 3 TOTALS
TOPICS-> Sci His
Dan Tilque 36 40 76
Dan Blum 20 40 60
Erland Sommarskog 24 28 52
Joshua Kreitzer 12 28 40
Pete Gayde 14 8 22
--
Mark Brader | scanf() is even more complicated and usually does
Toronto | something almost but not completely unlike what
m...@vex.net | you want. -- Chris Torek (after Douglas Adams)