Q 01/05

'Prom' is short for what kind of dance?

A) Promotion

B) Promissory

C) Prominence

D) Promenade

Answer · why

D) Promenade

It is a formal dance for graduating high school students at the end of the year, at which a prom king and queen are usually voted for.

Q 02/05

An 1894 journal describes an Amherst student invited to an early prom at which women's college?

A) Vassar

B) Smith

C) Wellesley

D) Mount Holyoke

Answer · why

B) Smith

Historians believe proms began at colleges in the late 19th century before high schools adopted them; yearbooks didn't cover them until the 1930s and ...

Q 03/05

In the early 20th century, what simple form did the high school prom take?

A) A costume ball

B) A tea dance in Sunday best

C) A moonlit hayride

D) A formal banquet in a hotel

Answer · why

B) A tea dance in Sunday best

By the 1920s and 30s it grew into a class banquet with dancing, and only in the prosperous 1950s did proms move to hotel ballrooms and country clubs.

Q 04/05

Which First Daughter held her senior prom in the East Room of the White House in 1975?

A) Amy Carter

B) Tricia Nixon

C) Susan Ford

D) Chelsea Clinton

Answer · why

C) Susan Ford

She attended the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda and served as White House hostess when her mother was treated for breast cancer.

Q 05/05

What is the small bouquet a date traditionally gives a girl to wear on her dress or wrist?

A) A boutonnière

B) A nosegay

C) A posy

D) A corsage

Answer · why

D) A corsage

The word comes from the French bouquet de corsage, a bouquet worn on the bodice; the boy gets a matching flower for his lapel.