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| Posted on Saturday, April 01, 2006 |
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Dozens turn out for Saturday Night Trivia
By Jeff Ostroth
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE
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What’s Your Trivia Quotient?
Here are a few of the multiple-choice questions were asked at a recent Saturday Night Trivia Game at Cedar Crest. Do YOU know the correct answers? You’ll find them printed below. | |
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- Which Humphrey Bogart classic won him an Oscar but was not made by Warner Brothers Studios? a: To Have and Have Not; b: Casablanca; c: The African Queen d: The Maltese Falcon
- The constellation “Crux” is probably better known as what?
a: Northern Cross; b: Northern Crown; c: Southern Crown; d: Southern Cross
- If I am born in March what is my flower?
a: Jonquil; b: Sweet Pea; c: Rose; d: Gladioli;
- What was the name of the agreement that limited naval power on the Great Lakes?
a: Calhoun-Pitt; b: Clay-Trimble; c: Rush-Bagot; d: Barry-Gladstone
- In 2000, I met Angela and we married in August 2001. We took our honeymoon first near St. Mark’s Square and then not far from the Spanish Steps. where were we?
a: Rome and Turin; b: Venice and Barcelona; c: Venice and Rome; d: Venice and Madrid
- This sentimental film follows the 60-year career of a public school master at Brookfield School:
a: Boys Will Be Boys; b: Goodbye Mr. Chips; c: Good Morning Boys; d: The Ghost of St Michaels
- Who painted The Sleeping Gypsy?
a: John Constable; b: James Abbott McNeill Whistler; c: Henri Rousseau; d: Winslow Homer
- Which country joined the 11-member Economic and Monetary Union on January 1, 2001?
a: Czech Republic; b: Denmark; c: Estonia; d: Greece
- According to Wien’s Displacement Law of blackbody radiation, the “color” of a star is related directly to it surface temperature. In general, red stars are cool while blue stars are hot. Which of the following stars is the coolest?
a: Polaris; b: The Sun; c: Arcturus; d: Spica
- What was the first German city taken by the Allies in World War II?
a: Freiburg; b: Rastatt; c: Lorrach; d: Aschen
Answers: 1-c; 2-d; 3-a; 4-c; 5-c; 6-b; 7-c; 8-d; 9-c; 10-d |
“Question number six,” says Irma Cohn into the microphone: “If I am born in March, what is my flower? One—a jonquil; two—sweet pea; three—rose; four—gladioli.”
A buzz of collective bewilderment wells up from the crowd, which sits in groups around eight or nine tables.
“I was born in March, and I have no idea,” murmurs a woman at one of the tables.
“These are not hard!” exclaims Irma, deadpan, and the room breaks out in howls of laughter. “Not when you have the answers!” calls out someone from the crowd.
Welcome to Saturday Night Trivia, Cedar Crest’s weekly fact-fest where people gather to test their memories, share their knowledge (and hunches), and indulge in good natured ribbing.
“Just a Lot of Fun”
Regularly attracting forty to fifty participants each week, Saturday Night Trivia was started about four and a half years ago by Irma and her husband, Julius Cohn, who moved to Cedar Crest from Lodi, N.J.
“We’ve been trivia fans for many years,” says Irma. “When we go on cruises, we go from one trivia game to the next.” And since Cedar Crest has often been likened to a perpetual cruise on land, it seemed natural for the community to have one.
“When we got here, I said ‘Somebody ought to start a trivia game.’ But everybody said they didn’t know how to do it, so we ended up doing it ourselves,” says Irma.
“It’s just a lot of fun,” adds Julius, who helps run the weekly game. In addition to running Saturday Night Trivia, the Cohns are also the organizers of Cedar Crest’s active Duplicate Bridge games and off-campus theater outings.
How the Game Is Played
As people arrive to play, they take their seats around tables in clusters of four to six people who will collaborate in answering questions. At about 7:30 p.m., the fun begins with a joke from Irma.
“I tell one joke in the beginning, and one joke at the end,” says Irma. “It pulls them in a little.” Irma says she gets her jokes from e-mails she receives from friends.
After the opening joke, the game begins. “I ask 24 questions,” says Irma, “but we give them a multiple choice. The people at each table signal with their fingers to one another what the correct choice is, and then they put it down. When they finish the 24 questions, they exchange sheets with the next table.
“Every table marks another table’s sheet, and hands it back. Then we go over the answers and see how many right answers each table got.
“The winning table gets a healthy round of applause, and the second-place table also gets applause. Every five to eight weeks, we give a prize to the person who sat at the most first- or second-place tables.”
Teamwork
Although the signaling with fingers is designed to keep from being overheard, much of the fun comes from the hushed debate within each group over what the correct answer is.
"Are you sure?" asks a player when her husand indicates his answer to a certain question. "No," he says, to laughs around the table. But the group went with his answer anyway. he was right!
Irma says she tries to strike a balance in the questions she picks. “I can’t make them too easy, because I don’t want any table getting 24 of 24, and I can’t make them too to hard, because if they’re too obscure, nobody would come back,” she says.
And where does she get all her questions? Mostly from internet web sites. “There’s an endless supply of trivia questions,” she says.
The Winners
After the questions are asked and each table’s answers are tabulated, it turns out that the top two tables have 19 and 15 correct answers respectively. “Wow, 19,” says Irma. “I told you they were easy!”
To find out more about the variety of activities available to you at Cedar Crest, call for your Free Information Kit or a personal appointment with Retirement Counselors Helen Waldrop or Lisa Schubert: 973-839-9377 or 1-800-301-8722.
Thirsty for more trivia questions? A complete set of 24 questions featured at Cedar Crest’s Saturday night Trivia event. Good luck!