Monitor Quiz: Match Wits With M.I.T.

This weekend, reunion classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will face off in the sixth annual Tech Challenge Games. Among them: a paper-airplane contest (distance and accuracy), a 'close packing' drill (how many classmates can fit in a rope circle 20 feet around?), and a 'college bowl' quiz. This year's quiz questions are a secret, of course, but here are some from last year. How would your team have fared?

1. Name the four simple (elementary) machines.

2. Name five works of literature that have the word 'red' or a shade of red in their title.

3. Name six of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

4. What is an organic molecule with the general structure of CnHnOn most likely to be?

5. In the Greek myth of Hercules, how many labors did the son of Zeus have to perform?

6. Who was the first United States president born an American citizen?

BONUS: Why did the MIT Radiation Laboratory purchase a carnival merry-go-round in 1945?

Answers

(1) Wheel and axle; inclined plane or wedge; pulley; lever. (2) 'The Red Badge of Courage,' by Crane; 'The Scarlet Letter,' by Hawthorne; 'The Hunt for Red October,' by Clancy; 'The Red Pony,' by Steinbeck; other answers had to be recognizable by a majority of the judges. (3) The pyramids of Egypt; the hanging gardens of Babylon; the statue of Zeus at Olympia; the temple of Artemis (Diana) at Ephesus; the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus; the Colossus of Rhodes; the Pharos (lighthouse) at Alexandria. (4) A carbohydrate or sugar. (5) 12; Can you name two? We don't have room to list them all here. (6) Martin Van Buren, the eighth US president, was born Dec. 5, 1782, in Kinderhook, N.Y. (Andrew Jackson, No. 7, was born earlier - but on the Carolina frontier.) BONUS: The prototype of the V-Beman radar was built on the rotation mechanism of the carousel.