Q 01/05

Which stirrup-shaped bone in the middle ear is the smallest and lightest bone in the human body?

A) Stapes

B) Malleus

C) Incus

D) Hyoid

Answer · why

A) Stapes

The stapes is the last of three tiny ossicles, passing sound vibrations on to the inner ear. Its Latin name simply means stirrup.

Q 02/05

The decibel is named after which inventor, whose mother and wife were both deaf?

A) Edison

B) Marconi

C) Bell

D) Morse

Answer · why

C) Bell

Bell is honored in the bel, a unit now seldom used on its own because nearly everyone works in tenths of it. His mother's hearing loss is what first p...

Q 03/05

Which Vienna composer had visitors write in notebooks to hold conversations as his hearing failed?

A) Smetana

B) Beethoven

C) Fauré

D) Cherubini

Answer · why

B) Beethoven

Beethoven never went totally deaf: in his final years he could still pick out low tones and sudden loud sounds. His 'conversation books' are now a pri...

Q 04/05

The cochlea, the coiled organ of hearing, takes its name from the Greek word for which animal?

A) Snake

B) Shrimp

C) Crab

D) Snail

Answer · why

D) Snail

Snail is the sense of the Greek kokhlias behind the name, a nod to the organ's spiral shell shape. Monotremes are the notable mammals whose cochlea is...

Q 05/05

Audiology emerged as a profession after which war sent many veterans home with hearing loss?

A) World War I

B) World War II

C) First Gulf War

D) Vietnam War

Answer · why

B) World War II

World War II left so many veterans with hearing loss that a new field grew up to treat them. The words audiology and audiologist have been traced in p...