The Slate Quiz with quizmaster Ken Jennings: Play the news quiz for the week of Oct. 23.

Think You’re Smarter Than Simon Doonan? Find Out With This Week’s News Quiz.

Think You’re Smarter Than Simon Doonan? Find Out With This Week’s News Quiz.

Test your knowledge of the week’s news.
Oct. 24 2013 11:48 PM

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-ster whom I’ve talked into taking the quiz on the record. This week’s contestant is Simon Doonan, an author, fashion commentator, and creative ambassador for Barneys New York. His most recent book is The Asylum.

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Think you can ace my quiz and beat Doonan? Good luck

The Slate Quiz with quizmaster Ken Jennings

According to reports out of Philadelphia, a man in Upper Macungie Township, Pa., had his Jell-O stolen from a workplace refrigerator on Oct. 10. Angry at yet another on-the-job snack theft, the man snapped and called in the cops. "The incident remains under investigation," confirm local police. Even if that dastardly crime is never solved, I hope you can solve the 12 questions on this week's Slate News Quiz.

Question 1 of 12

According to a sobering Millward Brown report, what had a remarkable 99.6 percent failure rate in early October?

Nine and a half million people visited the Obamacare portal in its first week of operation, according to the report, but only 36,000 successfully completed enrollment.

Question 2 of 12

The villages of Viganella, Italy, and Rjukan, Norway, located in deep valleys, have both done what to brighten up the dark winter months?

The tilting mirrors atop a nearby ridge will project a 2,000-square-foot circle of light into Rjukan's town square, where a skating rink will be installed.

Question 3 of 12

A violin sold by a British auction house on Saturday went for $1.78 million. Why was this particular violin in such high demand?

Question 4 of 12

What did David Babcock, a Missouri university professor, also accomplish while running the Kansas City Marathon on Saturday?

Question 5 of 12

An AP investigation revealed Tuesday that guards have been caught napping multiple times while the doors were left open where?

These are clear violations of the Air Force's "weapon system safety rules" for its nuclear missiles.

Question 6 of 12

How did Utah Scoutmasters Dave Hall and Glenn Taylor violate the Boy Scouts' "Leave No Trace" policy on a recent camping trip?

The video of the clueless scoutmasters in Goblin Valley went viral, costing them their Scouting positions and leaving them open to criminal charges.

Question 7 of 12

Last week, Saudi Arabia lobbied for and then, confusingly, rejected what?

Turning down a two-year Security Council seat is unprecedented. The Saudis blamed the U.N.'s failures in Syria and Palestine.

Question 8 of 12

Where did Greek police find Maria, the little girl rather appallingly dubbed "the blonde angel" by the media?

Maria's identity is still unknown, but the Roma couple who posed as her parents are being tried for child abduction. They now say Maria's mother abandoned her as a baby.

Question 9 of 12

A Las Cruces, N.M., hazmat team was brought in last Wednesday to fight a cloud of what?

Habanero particles from a nearby spice company got into an industrial park's ventilation system, leading to bloody noses and breathing problems.

Question 10 of 12

What was shut down in San Francisco for four days this week?

Question 11 of 12

Iran hanged a convicted drug smuggler named "Alireza M." on Oct. 9. What happened the following day to complicate the matter?

Morgue workers discovered the following day that the hanged man was still breathing. Iran announced at first that there would be a second hanging, but has since walked that back.

Question 12 of 12

The Romanian thief who stole $24 million worth of paintings from a Dutch museum last year was back in court Tuesday. Why?

"I could not imagine that a museum would exhibit such valuable works with so little security," complained Radu Dogaru, clearly the real victim here.

Click to revisit answers

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October 25, 2013

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Simon Doonan

Slate style columnist

U.S. drone strikes

Healthcare.gov

TSA security checks

Eli Manning's passes

Issued tanning beds to every resident

Knocked the tops off nearby mountains

Installed giant mirrors

Scheduled three Christmases

It played as the Titanic sank

It was built by Thomas Jefferson

It appears in Picasso's Violin and Guitar

It was used at the coronation of Henry VIII

He bought a winning lottery ticket

He recited Homer's Iliad

He taught his son to ride a two-wheeler

He knitted a 12-foot scarf

Nuclear missile command centers

Fort Knox

Federal prisons

The White House West Wing

Shooting four endangered wolves

Carving their names on a sandstone arch

Knocking over a 170 million-year-old rock formation

Burning down a fire lookout tower

A no-fly zone over Syria

A seat on the U.N. Security Council

A global treaty on mercury pollution

A new Olympic policy on women athletes

A car trunk

A "Gypsy camp"

A root cellar

A fishing boat

Cow farts

Bong smoke

Dryer lint dust

Chili powder

The Nike Marathon, due to noise complaints

Alcatraz, due to a rat infestation during the government shutdown

BART trains, due to an employee strike

AT&T Park, due to Kim and Kanye's engagement

He was found to be the wrong prisoner

He was found to be a woman

He was found to be not guilty of the charge

He was found to be alive

He plans to sue the museum for its lax security

He claims prison guards killed his pet flies

He is demanding money for the recovery of the art

He doesn't want Nicolas Cage to play him in the movie

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