Dr. Shapiro's Question of the Day IV by ShapiroA

Champion(s):

Projectyl
Under no circumstances should I be permitted to engage in agriculture.


Runner(s)-Up:

YuC
It is better to sit in silence and appear dumb than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.


Quiz Description

This is the sequel to Dr. Shapiro's Question of the Day III and its predecessors. As it says there:

I teach middle and high schoolers in San Francisco. Every day, I wear a puzzle or trivia question on my shirt. This quiz is a selection of past questions with no particular commonality, except that each one has been solved by at least one kid. (N. B.: I work with some pretty clever kids.)

Some puzzles don't come with explicit instructions, which you may find annoying if that is the sort of thing that annoys you. Some answers may not be unique. I will judge as fairly as I can.

Full Results:

Rank Player Total %ile 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Money Value (% Incorrect): 68 12 21 44 19 61 76 74 42 95 85 87
1 Projectyl 505 99 15
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2 YuC 480 97 00
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3 akambour 465 95 15
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4 hypotactic 432 93 15
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5 Tortoise 431 91 00
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6 NathanL 426 89 00
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7 KaufmanK 412 87 00
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87
8 RalliP 409 85 15
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76
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87
9 BringMoreLegos 384 83 15
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10 capitalr 369 82 15
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11 VenguswamyK 324 80 15
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12 GrahamJ 316 78 15
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13 srs 312 76 15
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14 BarthR 311 74 00
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15 Cnoocy 305 72 15
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16 MyersB 292 70 00
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17 BrochinS 286 68 15
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18 ShampooCell 275 66 00
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19 Michalle 271 65 15
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20 MattK 265 63 15
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21 BoyerA 264 61 00
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22 MajewskiK 258 59 00
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23 IvixorB 253 56 00
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23 AdamLevin18 253 56 00
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25 KesslerA2 241 53 00
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26 imogen 213 50 00
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26 FauxD 213 50 00
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28 BIngram 205 48 00
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29 Steve 195 46 15
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30 HortonR 192 44 00
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31 ecpekkle 182 42 00
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32 RautY 180 39 15
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32 LiptonM 180 39 00
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34 JonesRW 177 36 00
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35 watkinsAF 176 33 00
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35 StanleyP 176 33 00
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37 MoyseyC 171 30 00
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37 KreitzerJ 171 30 00
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39 colleenw 146 27 15
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40 MilesTeg 127 25 00
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41 LynchT 122 23 00
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42 ArunH 120 20 00
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42 LakeMA 120 20 00
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44 DouglasLovesVixey 110 17 15
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45 MitchellWA 100 16 00
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46 Vendy12 97 11 00
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46 GoodmanDL 97 11 00
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46 SokolM 97 11 00
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46 quarterrican 97 11 00
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50 Stevo600 42 6 00
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51 KPope 27 2 00
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51 xtremeironing 27 2 00
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51 OrientalWizDad 27 2 00
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Questions:

HAN_MAN

You're on the gallows with no room left for error. Supply the letter such that the resulting 7-letter term has the maximum number of hits on Google (for Dr. Shapiro, at the time of writing; who knows if we all see the same Google results, but don't worry, it isn't close).

Click to Reveal Answer
U or HANUMAN

The story goes that Queen Victoria of England enjoyed a certain children's book so much that she requested the author's next work, so he sent her An Elementary Treatise on Determinants -- a book that introduced a method mathematicians now call "Dodgson concentration". What was the book that initially gained her admiration?

Click to Reveal Answer
ALICE IN WONDERLAND

Take the name of Uruguay's capital and translate it (approximately) into English. The result is the name of what Bay Area city, pop. ~75,000? No cheating allowed, though Google surely holds the answer.

Click to Reveal Answer
MOUNTAIN VIEW

From a certain entry on Wikipedia: "In the terminology of phonetics, the sound has been described as a voiceless linguolabial trill, [r̼̊] ... A ___ is never used in human language phonemically (that is, as a building block of words), but it is widely used across human cultures."

What word (which is also a kind of fruit) has been redacted?

Click to Reveal Answer
RASPBERRY

A chain of sweet treat purveyors with many locations in the U. S. offers a discount that is only available 7 days a year. Those days are in January, March, May, July, August, October, and December. What's the chain?

Click to Reveal Answer
BASKIN-ROBBINS (31st-of-the-month deal)

Other than the questionable "chachacha", which English word contains ACHACH?

Click to Reveal Answer
STOMACHACHE(S)

Which planet (other than Earth) is, on average, closest to Earth? If it helps, you may assume all planets orbit the Sun in coplanar circles; though this is not entirely accurate, it simplifies the problem without changing the answer.

Click to Reveal Answer
MERCURY

The Parsons code (a.k.a. melodic contour) for the chorus of "Jingle Bells" begins with *RR RRR RUDUU...

What well-known Christmas carol has a Parsons code beginning with *DDDDDDD?

Click to Reveal Answer
JOY TO THE WORLD

The gnaborretni is a rare and somewhat whimsical typographic symbol whose occurrence is limited to one major world language. What is that language?

Click to Reveal Answer
SPANISH

"__, __, __, sugar on your bread, / If you don't like it you can go to bed." These are the 5th and 6th lines of a familiar children's song, in a version from India. The first 4 lines are much closer to the American version, but then the songs diverge because of dialect differences and rhyme constraints. What goes in the blanks?

Click to Reveal Answer
X, Y, Z or ZED

The hibiscus, saguaro, and Cherokee rose are the official state flowers of what 3 U. S. states? Yes, all 3 are required, in order. As a small hint, each of these states has (strictly) more vowels than consonants in its name.

Click to Reveal Answer
HAWAII, ARIZONA, GEORGIA

What number belongs in the blue cell?

Click for additional information

Click to Reveal Answer
4 (distance from home for the white king's knight on a chessboard)