The Lesser of Two Weevils Multiple Choice Quiz | Thematic Fun

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Let's get started with one for you dog lovers out there: which of these dog breeds is the lightest (on average)?

Answer: Dalmatian

Dalmatians average about 50-70 lbs. As for the other listed breeds: Rottweilers average from 95-130 lbs, Rhodesian Ridgebacks average around 85 lbs, and Bullmastiffs average 125-130 lbs.

2. Many people enjoy the shooting sports of Trap and Skeet, which involve attempting to break a flying "clay pigeon" (essentially a small fragile flying disc made of clay and pitch) using a shotgun. So which of these common shotguns has the smallest bore diameter?

Answer: 410 bore

A 410 bore has a bore diameter of .410", or 410 thousandths of an inch (a little bit less than half an inch). The other listed gauge diameters: 12 ga. (.729"), 20 ga. (.615"), 28 ga. (.550").

In shotguns, the term "gauge" refers to the number of lead balls of the same diameter as the bore that would weigh a pound - for example, 12 lead balls of the same diameter as a 12 gauge shotgun bore would weigh exactly one pound. So a lower gauge number actually indicates a larger bore than a higher gauge number!

Notice that the 410 bore is often mistakenly called a "410 gauge", but this is not correct - a true "410 gauge" shotgun would have a bore diameter of only .225". The number 410 actually refers to the bore diameter in thousandths of an inch. If the 410 were to be renamed using the term "gauge", it would be called a "67 gauge"!

3. Which of these digital disc types (12 cm diameter, single-sided, single-layer) has the lowest storage capacity?

Answer: CD-ROM (74 minute)

A standard 74 minute CD-ROM stores about 0.7 gigabytes (GB) of data. The others are all MUCH larger: a DVD-R holds about 4.7 GB, an HD-DVD about 15 GB, while a Blu-ray disc holds about 25 GB!

Be aware: if you really want an HD-DVD, good luck! The format was officially abandoned by Toshiba (its primary supporter) in 2008.

4. People might know that the most widely spoken language on Earth is Mandarin Chinese, with almost a billion native speakers. But which of the following languages has by far the fewest native speakers, and is not likely to catch up to any of the others for many, many years?

Answer: Finnish

Finland is a very sparsely populated country and its population is small compared to most European countries. The Finnish language is the first language of over 90% of the population and combined with the Finnish diaspora has led to an estimate of around 5 million native speakers around the world at the start of the 21st century.

The other listed languages; Yoruba, spoken in Nigeria; Romanian; and Turkish, would only be overtaken by Finnish if there was a massive population explosion in the country.

5. Which of the following language families (groupings of related languages) has the fewest distinct languages?

Answer: Korean (example: Korean)

Most linguists consider Korean a "language isolate" - that is, a language with no known linguistic relatives (and therefore, a family of one!) A few linguists speculate that it may be very distantly related to Japanese or Turkish, but these connections are far from proven. The other listed language families are Niger-Congo (with 1532 known languages), Indo-European (439 known), and Dravidian (85 known).

A few other examples of language isolates: Basque (spoken in France and Spain), Zuni (spoken in the southwestern US), and Ainu (spoken in northern Japan).

6. In 1954, a man named Roger Bannister became the first human being to run a mile in less than four minutes - quite an accomplishment! But which of these animals has the slowest top speed?

Answer: Black Mamba

A black mamba's maximum speed is about 20 mph. The other listed animals: Ostrich (40 mph), Greyhound (39 mph), Human (28 mph). These speeds were all measured over various short distances - for example, the human speed of 28 mph was measured at the fastest point of a 100 meter dash.

7. OK, let's see if you were paying attention in school: which of these colors of light has the shortest wavelength?

Answer: Violet

The visible spectrum of light (those wavelengths that human eyes can see) is a rather narrow band of wavelengths ranging from about 380 nm (nanometers - billionths of a meter) for violet, to 750 nm for red.

For comparison, the thickness of an average hair from a human head is about 100 micrometers (millionths of a meter), or 100,000 nm!

8. Here's another one to see who took good notes in class: which of these chemical elements has the lowest atomic number?

Answer: Gold

Gold has an atomic number of 79, meaning that it has 79 protons in its nucleus. Other listed elements: Lead (82), Radon (86), Uranium (92).

Did you know that all heavy elements (those with atomic numbers higher than 26, or Iron) must be created in supernovas, or star explosions? Since the human body contains many such trace elements, that means that we are all made up, in part, of star stuff!

9. If you're anything like me, by the time you get near the end of a quiz like this one, you've worked up quite an appetite! So which of the following food items has the fewest calories?

Answer: 1 thick strip of fried bacon (0.85 oz)

Believe it or not, the strip of bacon in question has the fewest calories (65)! Other foods listed here: 1 large egg (75), 12 oz. of Coke (140), 1 oz. slice of whole wheat bread (75).

One reason bacon is so salty is that it was originally invented in the days before refrigeration, when meat left out at room temperature would spoil fairly quickly. To prevent this spoilage, people would "cure" the meat with lots of salt, which helped preserve the meat so that it would remain edible longer. Nowadays, we don't need to use salt as a preservative, but it still tastes good!

10. Given the title of this quiz, you knew there HAD to be a question about weevils here somewhere, right? Well, here it is: Which is the lesser of these four weevils (by length)?

Answer: Grain weevil

Weevils in general are a serious pest, infesting many crops that humans depend upon. Grain weevils average about 4-5 mm in length - their actual size may vary depending on what type of grain they are infesting. Other listed weevils: Black Vine weevil (7-12 mm), Silver-green leaf weevil (5-6 mm), Strawberry-root weevil (6-8 mm).

So it would seem that grain weevils are truly the lesser of these weevils!

Source: Author beerslayer

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Snowman before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

The Lesser of Two Weevils Trivia Quiz

Modern society seems to be preoccupied with bigger, higher, faster... the larger, the better. But THIS quiz is about the neglected smaller, lower, slower things... Can you pick out the lesser of two, er, FOUR weevils (or any other category here)?

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