The University Challenge question setters gave you 20 of their trickiest starters for 10. Here are the answers.
1. Created by Thomas and John Knoll, which computer program was initially named Display? Its later name entered the OED as a verb in 2006.
• Photoshop
2. The name of what restricted substance is an anagram of an adjective that means “pertaining to large expanses of sea”, for example the Atlantic?
• Cocaine (oceanic, of course)
3. Vladimir Nabokov described parody as “a game”; what similar genre of writing did he describe as “a lesson”?
• Satire
4. Used in Japanese cuisine, the yuzu, sudachi and mikan are among fruit of which genus?
• Citrus
5. The mean population density of which other EU member state is closest to that of the United Kingdom?
• Germany (255 and 229; Belgium = 355; Italy = 200 p/sq km)
6. “I suppose the body to be just a statue or a machine made of earth.” Which French thinker made this statement?
• René Descartes
7. If the integers from one to 100 are written in Roman numerals and then placed in alphabetical order, which comes last?
• 38 (XXXVIII)
8. Which French obstetrician gave his name to a method of childbirth involving exercises and breathing control, designed to give pain relief without drugs?
• (Fernand) Lamaze (the Lamaze technique)
9. What is the only large satellite in the solar system to move in a retrograde orbit?
• Triton (Neptune, of course)
10. Which chemical element is indicated by the abbreviations for 10 to the 12 metres?
• Thulium (ie Tm, terametre)
11. Which structure was begun in 1173 as the final structure of its city’s cathedral complex? It often features in photographic illusions caused by forced perspective.
• Leaning Tower of Pisa
12. The birthplace of Karl Marx in 1818, which German city is the location of the Porta Nigra gate and a basilica that is the largest intact Roman structure outside Rome?
• Trier/Treves
13. Born in 1960, who is the author of the graphic novels Safe Area Goražde, Footnotes in Gaza and Palestine?
• Joe Sacco
14. The ancient kingdom of Colchis and Kartli-Iberia are part of the territory of which present-day country?
• Georgia
15. Which decisive battle is commemorated in the name of a Paris Metro station one stop from the Gare du Nord?
• Stalingrad
16. The US biochemist Elmer McCollum is generally credited with the invention of the alphabetical system of naming what group of organic compounds?
• Vitamins
17. Which 1969 novel begins with the words: “She was so deeply imbedded in my consciousness that for the first year of school I seem to have believed that each of my teachers was my mother in disguise”?
• Portnoy’s Complaint (Philip Roth)
18. In fine art, the rubbing technique known as “frottage” is particularly associated with which German-born artist, who used it extensively in his 1926 portfolio Histoire Naturelle?
• Max Ernst
19. In psychiatry, what term denotes any of various disorders characterised by immediate response to a desire without restraint, for example pathological gambling or pyromania?
• Impulse (control) disorder
20. The start of which century saw the following on the thrones of their respective polities: Magnus Barefoot of Norway; Baldwin the Second, Count of Edessa; and the Byzantine emperor Alexius the First?
• Twelfth/1101
The 2017 grand final airs tonight at 8pm on BBC2. Stephen Hawking will present the winners with the trophy.
