General Knowledge

As some of you know, I’m part of a foundation which sends poor Indian kids abroad to have fun and make friends.(At least that’s everyone who is not in the foundation thinks). Anyway, every year a few more people are inducted into the foundation to become trainees, and to get through they have to pass a couple of tests.

While creating question papers and organising things so that everything goes smoothly on the day of their tests is not exactly a lot of fun, correcting their papers most certainly was.
Especially the 10 general knowledge questions that were asked, just 10.. And the answers were unbelievable!

Take this one
1) Born in Honolulu , Hawaii, this person lived in Indonesia during his early years .His middle name is Hussein.a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, he has served in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. Who are we talking about?

The answer is, as most of you know, Barack Obama. But, did you pause to think that it might have been MF Hussain, Zakir Hussain... or even better, Saddam Hussein ??! When did he study at Harvard?

Or, how about this one..

2) This 140 km structure was built in 1961 and broken down on November 9th 1989. Also known as the “mauer” it was protected by a group of people called ‘grepos’. What are we talking about?

We were talking about the Berlin wall, but apparently the people who were answering the paper were talking about other things.
The answers were.... The Great Wall of China! If it had fallen down in 1989 I bet most of us would have heard about it. Or how about the Eiffel tower? Apparently that’s 140 km long. Use your head people, there’s a reason you have brains you know.

3)What was presented by France to the United States in 1886, to represent the friendship established during the American Revolution?

Ans: the Statue of Liberty. But some people were thinking out of the box, and the answer I like the best was – a diamond ring. Apparently someone thinks France and US were planning to get married.
3) But, my favourite—what is the collective noun for whales?

Have you heard of a swarm of whales? Or a herd of whales? Or a class of whales? (Someone thinking along the lines of ‘school of whales ’)

All these answers make me wonder why do we bother to call it ‘General Knowledge’?