Quiz Winners 

Previous winners

Winner of the January 2002 Quiz: Reading and spelling Skills Competition
Winner of the February 2002 Quiz: Problem solving Skills Competition
Winner of the March 2002 Quiz: Problem solving Skills Competition
Winner of the April 2002 Quiz: Problem solving Skills Competition
Winner of the May 2002 Quiz: Word puzzle skills Competition
Winner of the June 2002 Quiz: Number skills Competition
Winner of the July 2002 Quiz: General knowledge Competition
Winner of the August 2002 quiz: General knowledge Competition
Winner of the September 2002 quiz: General knowledge Competition
Winner of the October 2002 quiz: General knowledge Competition
Winner of the November/December 2002 quiz: General knowledge Competition

January Quiz and the Winner's Reply

The quiz for the month of January is about reading and spelling skills.  Expected to read the article about “New Year’s Day around the World” and identify ten words that have been spelt incorrectly.  

The wrongly spelt words identified by Chan are marked in red.

 New Year’s Day around the World

Welcoming the New Year is one of the oldest and gayest customs celebrated all over the world. But no festival has been observed on so many diferent dates or in so many different ways. 

The ancieint Greeks began their New Year with the new moon after June 21^st. Before the time of Julius Caesar, the Roman New Year started on March 1^st. In most Europeon countries during the Middle Ages, the New Year began on March 25^th.  

What about today? In most Christian countries the New Year begins on January 1^st. But other countries and religions observe New Years day on different dates, according to the calenders they use. 

The Chinese celibrate two New Year’s Days. One is on January 1^st, and the other takes place on the New Years Day reckond according to the Chinese lunar calendar. This may occur at any time between January 21^st and February 19^th. 

Indonesia also have two New Year celebrations, one on January 1^st and another on the Islamic New Year, a date that varies from year to year. The Russian Orthodox Church observes the New Year according to the Julian calendar, which places the day on January 14^th.

The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, is celebrated about the time of autumnal equinox at the end of September or the beginning of October.  In Viettnam the New Year is usually begins in February. 

Iran celebrates New Year’s Day on March 21.  Each of the religious groups in India has its own date for the beginning of the year.  One Hindu New Year comes sometime in April. 

The pepole in Morocco observe the beginning of the year on the tenth day of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic year.  The Koreans celebrate their New Year during the first three days in January. 

By the way, the custom of sending New Year’s cards is a very old one.  The Chinese have been doing it for more than one thousand years.  Their cards carried the name of the visiter who came to call, but no greeting or mesage. 

Chan’s reply with correct spelling is shown below.

 
Winner of the February 2002 Quiz and the reply:  

Jordan Pearson’s reply was selected as the lucky one amongst 51 correct submissions.

The quiz for the month of February is on testing your problem solving skills. The problem is about how fast rabbits could breed in ideal circumstances.

 Suppose a newly born pair of rabbits, one male, one female, are put in a field. Rabbits are able to mate at the age of one month so that at the end of its second month a female can produce another pair of rabbits.Suppose that our rabbits never die and that the female always produces one new pair (one male and one female) every month from the second month on. The puzzle is:

                                   How many pairs will there be in one year?

Useful Hints:

1.       At the end of the first month, they mate, but there is still only 1 pair.

2.       At the end of the second month the female produces a new pair, so now there are 2 pairs of rabbits in the field.

3.       At the end of the third month, the original female produces a second pair, making 3 pairs in all in the field.

4.       At the end of the fourth month, the original female has produced yet another new pair, the female born two months ago produces her first pair
     also, making 5 pairs.

The number of pairs of rabbits in the field at the start of each month is 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34,………….  

Jordan Pearson’ reply is 144. 

Starting with 0 and 1 and then adding the latest two numbers to get the next one forms the number at every month. 

Month:  0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11  12  13  14  15 ...

Rabit Pairs:  0  1  1  2  3  5  8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 610 ...

Winner of the March 2002 Quiz and the reply:

March Quiz and the Winner's (Sravan Anne) Reply 

Today we are beneficial of the genuine hard work of scientists who lived centuries ago.  However, some of the scientists’ discoveries were purely by accident.  Some of the discoveries are associated with humorous incidents.  One such example is the story of Archimedes. 

Archimedes was a Greek mathematician and is considered one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. 

He spent most of his time contemplating new problems to solve, becoming at times so involved in his work that he forgot to eat.  Much of Archimedes fame comes from his relationship with Hiero, the king of Syracuse.  He had a close friendship with the king and may have been related to the monarch.  In any case, he seemed to make a hobby out of solving the king's most complicated problems to the utter amazement of the sovereign.  

At one time, the king ordered a gold crown and gave the goldsmith the exact amount of metal to make it.  When Hiero received it, the crown had the correct weight but the monarch suspected that some silver had been used instead of the gold.  Since he could not prove it, he brought the problem to Archimedes.  One day while considering the question, he entered his bathtub and recognised that the amount of water that overflowed the tub was proportional the amount of his body that was submerged.  This observation is now known as Archimedes' Principle and gave him the means to solve the problem.  He was so excited that he ran naked through the streets of Syracuse shouting "Eureka! eureka!" (I have found it!).  The fraudulent goldsmith was brought to justice.  

Another time, Archimedes stated "Give me a place to stand on and I will move the earth”.  King Hiero, who was absolutely astonished by the statement, asked him to prove it.   In the harbour was a ship that had proved impossible to launch even by the combined efforts of all the men of Syracuse.  Archimedes, who had been examining the properties of levers and pulleys, built a machine that allowed him to single-handedly move the ship from a distance away. 

Like Archimedes, below is some of the work done by a few famous scientists.   

The names of the scientists are listed below.  Your job is to match the Scientist with the corresponding Number of his or her discovery. 

 Sravan has given following reply. 

Winner of the April 2002 Quiz and the reply:

The April quiz is about a riddle. 

A train whistles while approaching a platform at 100km/hour.  A man standing at the platform hears the whistling sound of the train.  What is the distance between the points at which he can see the train and hear the whistle? 

The competition closes on 30 April 2002 and the prize goes to the one who gives the correct answer.  However, in this competition there can be many correct submissions.  Therefore, all the correct entries will go into a lucky draw.  

Madhusha Karunaratne’s reply was “the distance between his eye and the ear”.

Winner of the May Quiz and the Winner's Reply:

The May quiz was about anagrams.

Making of anagrams is great fun.  Did you know that parliament is an anagram of partial men?   Anagram is the transposing of the letters of a word or group of words to produce other words that possess meaning, preferably bearing some logical relation to the original.

See whether you can sort out the following anagrams.  To help you, the first letter of the answer is given.

 Hanson Lee’s reply is shown below. 

enlarge
armpit
stream
kiss
smile

June Quiz and the Winner's Reply

The June quiz is about numbers.

The ancient Egyptians were possibly the first civilisation to practice the scientific arts.  Indeed, the word chemistry is derived from the word Alchemy which is the ancient name for Egypt.   

Egyptians really excelled in medicine and applied mathematics. Although there is a large body of literature describing their achievements in medicine, there are no records of how they reached their mathematical conclusions. Of course they must have had an advanced understanding of the subject because their achievements in engineering, astronomy and administration would not have been possible without it.

 The Egyptians had a decimal system using seven different symbols as shown below.

                                                  1 is shown by a single stroke.

                                                  10 is shown by a drawing of a hobble for cattle.

                                                  100 is represented by a coil of rope.

                                                  1,000 is a drawing of a lotus plant.

                                                  10,000 is represented by a finger.

                                                  100,000 by a tadpole or frog

                                                  1,000,000 is the figure of a god with arms raised above his head.

The task was identifying the following numbers. Jia-Hui Lee’s, the winner of the June quiz, answer is shown below.  

 
July Quiz and the Winner's Reply

The July quiz is about mammals.

Mammals represent the pinnacle of evolution; they are the most advanced forms of life yet to appear on this planet. They range from the largest animal ever to have lived, the Blue whale, to the tiny Kitti's hog-nosed bat, 100 million times smaller. Mammals have diversified to fill every kind of habitat: Polar bears and reindeer inhabit the Arctic wastes, while camel can survive in deserts without water for long periods; many monkeys spend almost their entire lives above ground high in the trees, while moles and gophers seldom leave their underground tunnels, and the whales and dolphins live mainly in the sea, a few in fresh water.

All mammals share certain features. They have an internal skeleton of bones linked together by flexible joints. Their bodies are covered in hair and they secrete milk to feed their young.

The question was to identify the following mammals. Winston's answers are also shown.

This animal, despite its powerful appearance, is a peaceful vegetarian.  It settles most of its disputes by letting off steam through displays of aggression and chest beating.
	Diet: eats plant material, especially shoots, buds, stems and leaves.   Breeding:  Only one young born at a time (if twins, usually only one survives).  Breed only every 3.5-4.5 years. Distribution: Found in Zaire, Rwanda, Uganda, Cameroon and Gabon.   Gorilla
This animal browses on trees and shrubs, using its prehensile upper lip to pull down twigs.  Mature bulls will fight, sometimes to the death, over access to the females.
	Diet: A browser rather than a grazer, feeding mainly on acacia leaves. Breeding: Only one young born at a time, after a gestation of 15-16 months, breeds only every three years. Distribution: From Somalia to the Cape in Africa.    Rhinoceros
This animal is probably the ancestor of the domestic pig.  It forages around on the ground, pushing its snout through the soil in search of food.  They forage in family groups, mostly in the daytime and at twilight.
	Diet: Almost anything; grasses, herbs, fruits, berries, nuts, mushrooms; also insects, earthworms, grubs and small vertebrae such as mice, hares, birds, lizards, snakes, frogs and fish; eggs. Breeding: 1-2 born at a time, after a gestation of 100-140 days.   Distribution: Europe, North Africa, Asia, Sumatra, Taiwan, Japan; introduced into many other regions.   Wild Boar

 August Quiz and the Winner's Reply

The August (2002) quiz was about the greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse effect is the rise in temperature that the Earth experiences because certain gases in the atmosphere trap energy from the sun. Without these gases, heat would escape back into space and Earth’s average temperature would be about 60ºF colder. Because of how they warm our world, these gases are referred to as greenhouse gases.

Have you ever seen a greenhouse? Most greenhouses look like a small glass house. Greenhouses are used to grow plants, especially in the winter. Greenhouses work by trapping heat from the sun. The glass panels of the greenhouse let in light but keep heat from escaping. This causes the greenhouse to heat up, and keeps the plants warm enough to live in the winter.

The Earth’s atmosphere is all around us. It is the air that we breathe. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere behave much like the glass panes in a greenhouse. Sunlight enters the Earth's atmosphere, passing through the blanket of greenhouse gases. As it reaches the Earth's surface, land, water, and biosphere absorb the sunlight’s energy. Once absorbed, this energy is sent back into the atmosphere. Some of the energy passes back into space, but much of it remains trapped in the atmosphere by the greenhouse gases, causing our world to heat up.

The task was to name at least one of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  
 
August - 2002 Quiz Winner Hilary Viney Reply.

There are many greenhouse gases and some of them are water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane.  


September - 2002 Quiz and the Winner's (Farah Hamid) Reply

 The September quiz was about Brazil.

Ask anyone what he or she knows about Brazil, and most people would mention football.  Brazil has won the World Cup four times.  People who are interested about geography would mention the Amazon River, the rainforest and its destruction, coffee & sugar plantations. 

Brazil is a giant country.  It is the fifth largest country in the world.  Only Russia, Canada, China and the USA (including Alaska) have more territory. The Brazilians are a mixture of many peoples, in particular native Indians (Amerindians), Negroe (originally from West Africa) and Europeans, especially Portuguese.  The national language is Portuguese.  Today, Portuguese, African, Amerindian and many other nationalities, including German, Italian and Japanese live in Brazil. 

Brazil is the giant of South America.  It is so vast that it shares frontiers with all except two countries that make up the continent of South America. The task was to research and find out how many countries share a border with Brazil. 

There are 10 countries that share a border with Brazil.  They are French Guiana, Suriname, Venezuela, Bolivi, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina.

October - 2002 Quiz and the Winner's (Thomas Seneviratne) Reply

 The October quiz was about the rainbow. 

In a traditional Irish folk tale it is said that there is a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow, which belongs to the leprechauns.  However, scientifically there is more to rainbows than this myth.  There is a reason for why and how rainbows are formed.   

Rainbow is one of the most spectacular light shows observed on earth.  Indeed the traditional rainbow is sunlight spread out into its spectrum of colours and diverted to the eye of the observer by water droplets. The "bow" part of the word describes the fact that the rainbow is a group of nearly circular arcs of colour all having a common centre.  The sunlight passing through water droplets causes a rainbow to form.  This is why we often see rainbows during or after a sun shower.

The task was to find out how many colours there are in a rainbow.

 There are 7 colours in a rainbow.  

November/December - 2002 Quiz and the Winner's (Parth Girdhar) Reply

 Without taking pen off paper, and using minimum number of straight lines, connect the nine dots in the above picture.   The question was what is the minimum number of straight lines required to connect the dots, and name the shape of one of the diagrams (for example, rectangle, triangle, square, pentagon etc.) coming out as a result of joining these dots.

It gave a hint as well.

 “If you stay within the box created by the dots, you wouldn't solve the problem. Once you broke the confines of the outline, the problem can be solved easily.  Think outside the Box”. 

Parth Girdhar’s reply was 4 lines. One of the shapes resulting from the lines drawn is a triangle.

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