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I have failed miserably on the Oprah Winfrey test. In preparation for her visit to Australia the great performer put up a little know your Australia test on her website and I stupidly agreed to test my knowledge.
Rather shamefacedly I confess to getting only four out of 10 answers correct. Have a go yourself but no Googling please.
I did better than I expected:
Out of 10 questions, you answered 5 correctly.
#5 - Sat Sep 18, 2010 12:55 PM EDTI failed.......I got 3 out of 10 !
#6 - Sat Sep 18, 2010 1:18 PM EDTTedd: Me too! I got 3 out of 10! I thought I'd at least get 4 or 5. Geez.
Guess we better sit in the corner of the room with the dunce caps on.....
7 but I have a friend from Cairnes.
Aspirin was not 'invented' it is naturally occurring in White Willow Bark. The ancient healers boiled a tea of it for pain relief.
#7 - Sat Sep 18, 2010 1:30 PM EDTI almost got them all right for a null score. 2 out 10. I'm sweating.
#10 - Sat Sep 18, 2010 2:02 PM EDT4 out of 10 and they were lucky guesses based on what little factual date I know about Australia.
There is a very good series of 12 historic fiction novels (Australia, by William Stuart Long) that begin in England and quickly progress toward the early settlements of Australia.
Australia, by William Stuart Long
The fence question reminded me of the Australian-based movie - Rabbit Proof Fence, a very good movie based on a true story about three very young girls (sisters and a cousin) who were deeply affected by Australia's government policy (1905-1971) on taking half-caste aborigine children from their families and putting them in orphanages to give them a white society education. The story can also be found on-line.
If anyone knows of other good Aussie movies or books, I'd be interested.
#11 - Sat Sep 18, 2010 2:34 PM EDTNevil Shute wrote a few really good novels about Australia. He is known best for On The Beach, but other good ones are A Town Called Alice, The Breaking Wave, and The Rainbow and the Rose. Most of his books were set in Australia.
Other than that, my mind is blank... I'd love to know more books about Australia, too!
In A Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson. This is a book about Bryson's travels to Australia over a 4 or 5 year period. His style of humor is very similar to Dave Barry, the humor columnist. The book is delightful and easy to read.
I also read Bryson's, A Walk In The Woods, about his journey on the Appalachian Trail. It's laced with humor that most of us can relate to, and educational as he shares a variety of facts he learned about the early days of the Appalachian Trail and surrounding communities. Highly recommended.
Kori: Always wanted to see Rabbit Proof Fence. Thanks for reminding me! :)
JG: You're welcome and hope you like it. After watching it, I researched it online for several hours looking for pictures and addtl information.
The fence question reminded me of the Australian-based movie - Rabbit Proof Fence
It reminded me of the film as well. It's a really good film. :)
An Australian movie that I absolutely loved is 'The Castle'.....hysterically funny. Some other good ones I know of are: Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; Babe (of course); Chopper; Dead Calm (if you haven't already seen it); Dirty Deeds; and The Piano (New Zealand).
Have you seen "The Lighthorsemen"? Its about the Australian 4th Lighthorse Brigade in WWI. You can see parts of it by googling "the australian light horse."
7 of 10. PURE Luck! The 3 that I thought I knew were the 3 that I missed. Excuse me, as I go buy a lottery ticket with randomly picked numbers.
#13 - Sat Sep 18, 2010 3:23 PM EDTI realized after I posted that the numbers were not quite right. I thought I knew the answers to 5 and only got 2 right... 40% on knowledge. I got the other 5 right on pure luck. Which almost substantiates what has been said about me.... "you ain't but half smart, the rest is luck". Now it is a quantifiable 40%!! Now if I were just smart enough to remember to buy that lottery ticket.
I got 6of 10 correct. But i wouldn't give a p... up a rope for Oprah anyway. She is a hell of a woman. I just can't seem to stand her.
#15 - Sat Sep 18, 2010 3:56 PM EDTOut of 10 questions, you answered 4 correctly.
I failed. I blame my narcoleptic geography teacher in high school.
#17 - Sat Sep 18, 2010 4:47 PM EDT3 out of 10, yikes! But I don't even know those kind of figures for my home state! But we had some really beautiful pictures as a consolation prize.
#19 - Sun Sep 19, 2010 1:03 AM EDT
Comment collapsed by the communityI got 6 correct. I guessed how many kangaroo living in Australia. I have an "idiot savantness" about me. Drives my husband crazy.
#22 - Mon Sep 20, 2010 8:00 AM EDTI got five, but I learned some things too. Thanks, that was interesting.
#23 - Mon Sep 20, 2010 6:13 PM EDTYou're in Easy Mode. If you prefer, you can use XHTML Mode instead. |
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