Play the Slate News Quiz

With Jeopardy! superchampion Ken Jennings.

Welcome back to Slate’s weekly news quiz. I’m your host, 74-time Jeopardy! winner Ken Jennings.

Every Friday I’ll be testing your knowledge with 12 challenging questions on the week’s news events, big and small, including happenings in science, sports, politics, and culture both high and low. The questions are multiple-choice, and time is of the essence: You have 30 seconds to answer, and as the seconds tick away, the question’s point value drops from 50 all the way down to zero, so you’ll want to click on your answer as fast as you possibly can. There’s no penalty for an incorrect answer, so feel free to take a guess if your puny human brain fails you.

At the end of the quiz, you’ll be able to compare your score with that of the average contestant, as well as to the score of a Slate staffer whom I’ve talked into taking the quiz on the record. This week’s contestant is Slate television critic Troy Patterson.

Think you can ace my quiz and beat Troy Patterson? Good luck!

If you expected President Obama's re-election to be a catalyst for change, there was much this week to confirm your intuition. Marijuana and gay marriage are now legal in various states. Jermaine Jackson changed his last name to "Jacksun." Even the map could change if Texans petitioning to secede get their way. Amid all this tumult, a good old-fashioned government sex scandal—just like they used to make!—almost came as a relief. I'm not sure if Slate has covered l'affaire Petraeus yet, so I'll make sure it comes up on this week's quiz.

Question 1 of 12

After receiving stray mortar fire this week, Israel twice fired on what neighboring country for the first time since 1973?

Question 2 of 12

It was announced this week that Michael Arndt, once the personal assistant to actor Matthew Broderick, will replace whom?

Arndt left Broderick's employ to become a Hollywood screenwriter. His credits include Little Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3.

Question 3 of 12

Which of this week's newsmakers once teamed up with her identical twin sister to cook alligator on an episode of the Food Network series Food Fight?

Question 4 of 12

According to the International Energy Agency, what country will lead the world in oil production in 2020, overtaking Saudi Arabia for the first time?

"Fracking" is among the new technologies projected to make the United States the global oil king for at least five years.

Question 5 of 12

"This is an opportunity for the president to lead," said House Speaker John Boehner this week, about the start of talks on what urgent issue?

Question 6 of 12

Seven members of the Navy's elite SEAL Team Six were disciplined last week for doing what?

The SEALs, including one from the Bin Laden raid, violated nondisclosure agreements when they were paid to work on Medal of Honor: Warfighter.

Question 7 of 12

In 2010, at the time Gen. Petraeus began cooperating with Paula Broadwell to write his biography, Broadwell had never done what before?

The best-selling All In: The Education of General David Petraeus remains Broadwell's only book credit.

Question 8 of 12

A record eight people have set themselves on fire this week in what country, as it prepares for a handoff of power to Vice President Xi Jinping?

Hu Jintao stepped down as China's Communist Party leader on Wednesday, leading to a spike in Tibetan self-immolations.

Question 9 of 12

Despite the efforts of London's famed "Beefeater" guards, an intruder last week managed to steal the keys to what?

The burglar got away with the keys, but a Historic Royal Palaces spokesman noted that that's OK because all the locks have since been changed.

Question 10 of 12

According to an international team of scientists led by David Sobral of Leiden University, over 95 percent of what that will ever exist have already been created?

The astronomers found that, over the last few billion years, the universe has almost stopped making new stars.