Welcome to our 'starter for 10' page

All the following questions have been 'starter for ten' quiz questions on University Challenge.

Questions

1. 'In the darkening twilight I saw a lone star hover gem-like above the bay.' This was the last diary entry of which explorer, written on January 5th 1922 at Grytviken in South Georgia?
2. Shelly said it's like London, T. S. Elliot says it is oneself and Jean-Paul Sarte says it is other people. What?
3. Which city at the mouth of the River Arno in 1564 was the birthplace of Galileo?








4. What is a state of animal dormancy, similar to hibernation, that takes place in the summer rather than the winter?
5. What did Winston Churchill describe in a 1939 broadcast as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma"?
6. In the late 1930s, the German word meaning aviator defence gun, was abbreviated to what four letter word? Originally referring to anti-aircraft artillery, in English it now means adverse criticism.
7. Which country is the location of the highest mountain outside Asia?
8. Played by Kate Winslet, the 19th century fossil hunter Mary Anning is the subject of what 2020 film?
9. What name is given to the photosensitive layer of the human eye that consists of rods and cones?
10. What five-letter adjective is found in all the following: the popular name for Charles I’s parliament of 1640; another term for stenography; and an electrical circuit that acts as a shunt to a circuit of comparatively large resistance?
11. Known until 1973 as Fort Lamy, which city is the capital of Chad?
12. It's name derived from the Latin for sausage, what severe form of food poisoning affects the central nervous system and is often contracted from spoiled meat?

Answers:

1. Ernest Shackleton
2. Hell
3. Pisa
4. Aestivation
5. Russia
6. Flak
7. Argentina
8. Ammonite
9. Retina
10. Short








11. N'Djamena
12. Botulism