Current Events

So someone in our office sends out a weekly quiz almost every thursday, it's ten questions, usually multiple choice and originally she was borrowing questions from "Are you smarter then a fifth grader?" Well I won the quiz about 7 weeks in a row so I'm now banned from winning which is comical because the quiz has changed from Fifth grade questions, to more current events stuff. Which I have very little eye for extreme details. Take this weeks quiz:

1. President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for what the awarding committee said were "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." He becomes the fourth American president to be honored with the award; which of the following is NOT among them?
Theodore Roosevelt
Woodrow Wilson
John F. Kennedy
Jimmy Carter

2. The kidnapping at knifepoint of a four-day-old baby from its Nashville, Tenn., home ended happily when the infant was found three days later in neighboring Alabama. The mother of the child said the kidnapper had posed as a uniformed government official before pulling a knife and snatching the baby. What division of government?
The Tennessee State Police
The Inland Revenue Service
The Nashville Police Department
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service

3. A member of the French government, Frederic Mitterand, found himself in hot water when opponents surfaced a segment from a four-year-old autobiography in which he admitted he had paid for sex with young male prostitutes in Thailand. What position does he hold in the cabinet of President Nicolas Sarkozy?
Justice minister
Culture minister
Education minister
Minister of defense

4. Major League Baseball entered its postseason phase, but not before an extra game was played to decide the American League Central Division, which was tied between the Minnesota Twins and the Detroit Tigers after the regular season. The game was a back-and-forth, extra-innings thriller that ended in a 6-5 win for the Twins. In which inning did it end?
10th
11th
12th
13th

5. After a five-month trial, the 85-year-old son of New York philanthropist and socialite Brooke Astor was found guilty of looting his Alzheimer's-ridden mother's estate, a verdict that could send him to jail for as many as 25 years. What is the son's name?
Anthony Astor
Vincent Astor, Jr.
Anthony Marshall
Philip Marshall

6. NASA is known for its soft landings of men and spacecraft onto the moon. Not this time. The space agency deliberately smashed a rocket and satellite into the moon's south pole. For what reason?
As part of a test to see if the same could be done on Mars
To disturb the moon's surface and determine if there is any ice underneath
To get rid of space junk that had been floating around the earth and threatening the International Space Station
To destroy a Russian probe landed in the area in the Sixties that NASA feared was being used as a signaling device for nuclear missiles by Iran

7. Disgraced football player Michael Vick, just back in the National Football League after serving a prison sentence for running a dogfighting ring, landed a TV show that will highlight his life and his comeback with the Philadelphia Eagles. On what channel will it be shown?
Fox
Bravo
TLC (The Learning Channel)
BET (Black Entertainment Television)

8. A museum in Lima, Peru, offered a no-questions-asked $2,000 reward after a body part was stolen from its version of the controversial "Bodies" exhibition, a collection of Chinese cadavers preserved through a process that replaces water in tissues with polymers. What part went missing?
A lung
A head
A forearm
A sexual organ

9. American pianist and singer Harry Connick Jr. became red-faced with anger as he judged a talent show in which four white men in afro wigs and blackface sang and danced behind a Michael Jackson impersonator in whiteface as they did a Jackson 5 skit. In which country did the incident happen?
Australia
England
Canada
Ireland

10. A Mideast man who bragged about his sex life -- including losing his virginity at 14 -- was sentenced to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes after being found guilty of transgressing morals laws. In what country was the sentence handed down?
Iran
Oman
Yemen
Saudi Arabia

What's funny is I knew every single one of these stories, what I didn't know was the exact details. So I did poorly on this quiz (4/10) but I don't feel terrible because I at least know about the news. But then I got to thinking...Marty...what happened to your attention to detail. You used to be able to quote off the who/what/where/when/why of a story easily, and right now you can get the what and the why...2/5 is riding the Mendoza line, and that's never good. I guess I need to sharpen up on my current events.

Answers: (Scroll over them to see them)

1. John F. Kennedy
2. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service
3. Culture minister
4. 12th
5. Anthony Marshall
6. To disturb the moon's surface and determine if there is any ice underneath
7. BET (Black Entertainment Television)
8. A lung
9. Australia
10. Saudi Arabia