Old Questions from the Canadian Inquisition (OQFTCI)

[This is mostly a repeat of my July 23 introductory posting, with a
couple of additions marked <%>. One of these invites a posted response.]

As you may have gathered by now, the Canadian Inquisition is a team
trivia league that plays in Toronto pubs. It's a cooperative league,
whose teams take turns to write and ask the questions that the others
answer. My team is the Usual Suspects. The last time we wrote the
questions was the January-April 2007 season, and with the concurrence
of our captain, Rodney Boyd, I recently posted to this newsgroup most
of the questions from that season. Having exhausted those, I have
now progressed to questions that we wrote the *previous* time that
we were doing it -- that was the January-April 2003 season.

I have now posted Games 1-5 from that season and will be continuing
with Games 6-10 in order, followed by the Final.

<%> (And if there is interest after this, I can subsequently continue
with the *preceding* set of questions we wrote -- January-April 1998.
To use the questions from 1998 I'll have to retype them all and scan
any handouts, as this set now exists only on paper, but this doesn't
seem as though it'll be too much trouble. Is there interest?)

These questions are actually on the league's web site already, with
answers; but you aren't going to explore that site, because you're
going to post answers based on your own knowledge, right?

Since the questions are now more than 5 years old, it is possible that
some of them will be out of date. I will generally post questions
with their original wording even if it is misleading for this reason.
(Some questions will be altered for various other reasons, such as
for greater clarity or to better suit this medium or to avoid issues
that led to protests in the original game). I will always accept as
correct the answer that was correct at the time of the original game.
I will also accept answers that are currently correct, *but I don't
promise to find out about them in advance*.

So if you know that an answer has changed, then please post something
to say so. You can do this along with your posting of answers, or at
a later time after you have been able to check your facts, or after
you see the results posting. Scores will be adjusted accordingly.


A regular game in the league contains 102 questions. Most of the game
is in rounds of 10 questions on a specific topic within a different
general area. For example, a recent game included a geography round on
former place names, an entertainment round on Morgan Freeman movies,
and a sports round on things that happened during Toronto Blue Jays
games. Round 10 (<%>the "challenge round") contains 12 questions
on a variety of subjects. Round 1 is always a current events round,
which I won't be posting because they'll be out of date, and round 5
is always an audio round, which I won't be posting because the audio
is no longer available.

So that leaves 82 questions, in 8 rounds (rounds 2-4 and 6-10 of the
original games), that can be posted. Generally I'm going to post
rounds 2-3 in one posting, rounds 4 and 6 in the next, and so on.
I'll keep a cumulative score over the four postings, counting your
best 6 rounds out of 8 -- that way if you miss a set or there's a
subject you're weak on, you still have a chance to finish well.

<%> (The Final has rounds of 15 questions, typically consisting
of 3 questions each on 5 subtopics within a general topic like
entertainment. The challenge round of the Final has 18 questions.
When I get to the Final, I intend to post one round at a time.
Your best 6 round scores will still be what counts.)

By the way, one round is always Canadiana (this may also fall under
another subject such as history or geography), which those of you in
distant places may have some trouble with, but I am including them
in the posting series anyway.

The usual rule in our regular league games is that each question goes
to an individual who can answer for 2 points without assistance, and
if he misses, he can consult his team and try again for 1 point.
If the quizmaster judges that an answer is incomplete, she can ask
for more details before ruling the answer right or wrong.

To maintain the spirit of these rules, I will say that you can give
two answers on every question. But I will penalize you if you give
both a right answer and a wrong answer. The scoring will be:

4 points if you answer once and are right, or twice, both right
3 points if you guess twice and are right only the first time
2 points if you guess twice and are right only the second time

Please make it clear if you are giving two answers or one answer with
some sort of additional comment.

Where it makes sense, I will accept answers that I think are almost
close enough (more than half correct), with a 1-point penalty. But
I will reject answers that I do not think are sufficiently specific,
since there is no opportunity to ask for clarification when answers
are posted in the newsgroup.

You must, of course, answer based on your own knowledge and nothing
else. You must post all your answers in a single posting. Where a
person's name is asked for, normally you need only give the surname.

My intent is that for each quiz you'll get about 3 days to answer,
plus or minus a few hours, but I'm not going to set exact deadlines;
I'll cut off entries at whatever time it's convenient for me to do
the scoring and post the results.
--
Mark Brader | "Simple things should be simple." -- Alan Kay, on UIs
msb@xxxxxxx | "Too many ... try to make complex things simple ...
Toronto | and succeed ... only in making simple things complex."
| -- Jeff Prothero
My text in this article is in the public domain.
.

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