Sunday, July 29, 2012

Save Trees?

 The effort to cut down this tree resulted in two deaths, three people getting injured and almost resulted in a full-blown war between two countries. What incident are we referring to and how is it related to the big guy in the second picture? As usual, give your answer as a comment.


Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Comics connect

These three characters could not be more different.

One's a broke London-based private detective specializing in the supernatural, one's a rock star from Montreal, and the third is... well, Superman.

What could they possibly have in common?

As usual, submit your answers in the comments below.


Thursday, July 19, 2012

Tolkien and the Slayer of Smaug

The following two scenes depict passages J. R. R. Tolkien wrote as a reaction to a well-known piece of literature. Can you identify it? Submit your response in the comments below.

(Hint: The title of this post provides a clue.)

Leave your answers in the comments below.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

For those who missed the IQ informal session


Some word puzzles for you to get cracking. Leave your answers as comments.
Good, Bad and the Ugly: on paper
Three clues refer to: 1. A synonym 2. An antonym 3.An anagram of the answer word (in no particular order).

Unscramble the clues to determine the answer word.
E.g. disagree, eager, correspond – AGREE

  1. secure, agitate, stayed: _____
  2. obscene, weld, chaste: _____
  3. grandiose, coordinated, nonunionized: _____
  4. delays, sainted, liberates: _____
  5. scalp, brooch, release: _____
  6. fix, rapier, break: _____
  7. thoughtless, rescales, heedful: _____
  8. replies, questions, rawness: _____
  9. heed, silent, ignore: _____
  10. single, hitched, admirer: _____
  11. alumna, handbook, automatic: _____
  12. sound, license, quieten: _____
  13. increased, subsided, needless: _____
  14. curt, conical, verbose: _____
  15. nourish, abbreviate, issuant: _____

 
Anagramania
Each of the following clues has multiple answers that are anagrams to each other.
For Eg. Regrets giving a gift to the snake. (3X7)
Repents, Present, Serpent


  1. The competitions frighten Tom so much that he no longer bothers about the units of area. (4X5)
  2. Respond to me or there will be no remnant of the wooden box that I will provide. (4X5)
  3. Universal cartoons. (2X6)
  4. I will sell the company equity while Raj listens to Sheela cut the rabbits of their fur. (4X5)
  5. No one is left in the oceanic depths except the pilots. (3X6)
  6. You will hear an alarm when you wash off the sap. (3X5)
  7. The editor found it more expensive when he raised a pet dog than a pet cat. (3X6)
  8. Cuddle and eat chocolate. (2X6)
  9. The illness is prevalent in the coastal area. (2X7)
  10. Make a written comment about the nature of voice that was heard in the university town in Britain. (3X4)
  11. Grieve about something related to the mind, not about your royal cape getting burned when it was kept near the chimneypiece. (4X6)
  12. It is great to see the moneybag being manufactured using the dye for plastic. (3X5)
  13. Cover in dirt, the female horses that are running along the peripheries of the forest. (2X5)
  14. The pioneer in the field will put up a comic gig to recount his experiences to us. (3X5)
  15. Play the cue game in an unending cycle instead of the game on horseback. (3X4)
 
Tom Swifties
Tom Swifties are those sentences which become a pun by adding an appropriate adverb.
Eg: "I'm wearing my wedding ring," said Tom with abandon (a band on)

  1. "The number of people not attending class today really bothers me", said the professor _______
  2. "I wonder why uranium is fluorescent", said Mary _______
  3. "I have writer's block", said Tom _______
  4. "Well, I got here with five minutes to spare", said Tom _______
  5. "I don't need the mantissa of the logarithm", said Tom _______
  6. "I do NOT have a multiple personality disorder", said Tom, trying to be _______
  7. "Use phenolphthalein", Tom _______
  8. "Idiot, add up this list of n numbers and then divide the sum by n", said Tom _______
  9. "When in Rome, do all the naughty things the Romans do", said Mary _______
  10. "The seesaw is upside down", said Tom _______
  11. "I ordered chocolate, not vanilla", I _______
  12. "I think I'll end it all", Sue _______
  13. "South Korea has a lovely capital city", said Tom _______
  14. "Dorian Gray's by Oscar", said Tom _______
  15. "This is all from memory", Tom _______