Quiz created: 1999-12-05, Corrected 2017-09-06

Christmas Pop-Culture Trivia Quiz (2)

Instructions: Answer the multiple choice questions, guessing if necessary; then click on the "Process Questions" button to see your score. The program will not reveal which questions you got wrong, only how many points you have. Go back and change your answers until you get them all right. (The message box will rejoice at that point and the page will change color in delight.)

Points to note: (1) Questions with only one possible answer are one point each. (2) Questions with one or more possible answers (represented by check boxes) give a point for each correct answer, but also subtract a point for each wrong answer! (3) The program will not attempt to score your efforts at all if you have not tried at least half of the questions. (4) This quiz is for your own use only. No record of your progress is kept or reported to anyone.

1. Composer Georg Friedrich Handel wrote "The Messiah" to be performed at Easter, but it also became a Christmas favorite. In what year was it written?
1650  1742  1812  1887  1941  No Answer
2. In Clement Moore's poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas," St. Nick's cheeks and nose were like
peaches & an apple 
glowing coals 
cherries 
apples & a cherry 
roses & a cherry 
No Answer
3. In Mexico families hold a Christmas procession in which participants follow the path Joseph and Mary took into Bethlehem. This is called a
posada  parada  viaje  rosario  novena  No Answer
4. In Tchaikovsky's ballet "The Nutcracker," what is the name of Clara's uncle who gives her the nutcracker as a toy?
5. How many birds are presented in total in the last verse of "The Twelve Days of Christmas," including partridges, turtledoves, French hens, calling birds, geese-a-laying, swans a-swimming, &c.?
12  17  23  28  35  78  No Answer
6. In 1945 a simple but amusing plaything hit the toy market. Still popular today, it may be described as a wiggly coil. What is the name it is marketed under?
Wiggly Coil 
Slinky 
Night Crawler 
Pigtail 
Parent Harrassing Device 
The Worm 
No Answer
7. O. Henry's beloved Christmas story "The Gift of the Magi" features an impoverished but self-sacrificing husband and wife who present each other with gifts each of which is rendered useless by the sacrifice the other makes to buy the reciprocal gift. What are the two gifts?
watch fob  telephone  hair comb  candy bar  bureau 

      Points out of 8:

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This quiz is adapted from Barbara Yost's "Yuletide Knowledge Test," which appeared in Arizona Republic in about 1996 or 1997 and was reprinted in the San Diego Union Tribune in December, 1997.

This consummately cool, pedagogically compelling, self-correcting,
multiple-choice quiz was produced automatically from
a simple text file of questions using D.K. Jordan's
dubiously original, but publicly accessible
Think Again Quiz Maker
of September 6, 2015.