Q 01/05

In Jack and the Beanstalk, which family animal does Jack trade away for a handful of magic beans?

A) A horse

B) A cow

C) A donkey

D) A pig

Answer · why

B) A cow

A cow is the price, much to the dismay of Jack's widowed mother. The telling most often reprinted today is Joseph Jacobs's, from his 1890 collection E...

Q 02/05

Which US president, a jelly bean fan since quitting smoking, sent some into space on the shuttle Challenger?

A) Jimmy Carter

B) Bill Clinton

C) George H. W. Bush

D) Ronald Reagan

Answer · why

D) Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan gave jars of Jelly Belly beans to visiting dignitaries. In 1983 he made them the first jelly beans in space, a surprise for the astronau...

Q 03/05

Which US city is home to Cloud Gate, the mirror-polished steel sculpture nicknamed The Bean?

A) Chicago

B) Seattle

C) Philadelphia

D) St. Louis

Answer · why

A) Chicago

Chicago unveiled the sculpture in Millennium Park in 2004. Artist Anish Kapoor took his idea from liquid mercury, and its 168 welded plates show no vi...

Q 04/05

Coffee beans are really seeds, usually found in pairs inside a small fruit that growers call a coffee what?

A) Apricot

B) Olive

C) Cherry

D) Grape

Answer · why

C) Cherry

Cherry is the growers' word for the fruit, which usually holds two seeds lying flat side to flat side. The occasional fruit with a single seed is know...

Q 05/05

Vanilla beans, source of the world's second-priciest spice, are the seed pods of which family of flowers?

A) Lilies

B) Orchids

C) Irises

D) Jasmines

Answer · why

B) Orchids

Orchids of the genus Vanilla grow the pods. In 1841 a 12-year-old enslaved boy on Réunion, Edmond Albius, discovered how to pollinate them by hand, wh...