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Daily quiz #20

Answers · Saturday, 7 November 2026

6 questions, easy to hard, then Ivy's pick. Here is every answer, and why.

  1. Question 1

    Which Greek city-state sent boys into military training from the age of seven?

    • A. Corinth
    • B. Sparta ✓
    • C. Thebes
    • D. Athens

    Answer: Sparta. The 'agoge'. Spartan women, by contrast, owned land and exercised in public, which scandalised other Greeks. 'Laconic' comes from Laconia, the Spartan region, because Spartans wasted no words.

  2. Question 2

    Which parrot species is best known for mimicking human speech?

    • A. Cockatoo
    • B. Macaw
    • C. African grey parrot ✓
    • D. Budgerigar

    Answer: African grey parrot. Alex, an African grey studied for 30 years, could name colours, count and ask questions; his last words to his researcher were 'You be good. I love you.'

  3. Question 3

    What word describes an AI chatbot confidently stating something false?

    • A. Glitch
    • B. Overfitting
    • C. Hallucination ✓
    • D. Bias

    Answer: Hallucination. The model predicts plausible text, not true text, so an invented court case reads just like a real one. Lawyers have been fined for filing briefs with cases that did not exist.

  4. Question 4

    True or false: tug of war was once an Olympic event.

    • A. True ✓
    • B. False

    Answer: True. Contested from 1900 to 1920. In 1908 a team of Liverpool policemen beat the Americans, who protested that the police had cheated by wearing their heavy work boots.

  5. Question 5

    Who was the last emperor of China, dethroned as a child in 1912?

    • A. Qianlong
    • B. Guangxu
    • C. Puyi ✓
    • D. Kangxi

    Answer: Puyi. Crowned at two, deposed at six, later installed by Japan as puppet ruler of Manchuria, then 're-educated' by the communists and finished his life as a Beijing gardener. Bertolucci's 1987 film about him won nine Oscars.

  6. Ivy's pick

    How old was the oldest person whose age has been verified?

    • A. 110
    • B. 135
    • C. 122 ✓
    • D. 99

    Answer: 122. Jeanne Calment, Arles, France, 1875–1997. She met Van Gogh as a girl, took up fencing at 85 and smoked until she was 117.

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