Q 01/05

The Yellow River is called both China's Pride and China's what, after floods that killed millions?

A) Shame

B) Regret

C) Sorrow

D) Burden

Answer · why

C) Sorrow

Sorrow is the word history attached to the river: by one count it flooded 1,593 times in about 2,540 years.

Q 02/05

The Chinese idiom about the Yellow River flowing clear means the same as which English expression?

A) When pigs fly

B) Once in a blue moon

C) A drop in the ocean

D) Still waters run deep

Answer · why

A) When pigs fly

When pigs fly is the nearest English match, because the silt-laden river running clear was thought impossible. A clear stretch was once reported to a ...

Q 03/05

In Chinese legend, which fish becomes a dragon by leaping the Dragon Gate falls on the Yellow River?

A) Pike

B) Trout

C) Perch

D) Carp

Answer · why

D) Carp

Carp that clear the falls become dragons in the tale, which made the leap a Chinese symbol for passing the imperial exams.

Q 04/05

Chiang Kai-shek's troops broke the Yellow River's dikes in 1938 to slow which invading army?

A) Soviet

B) Japanese

C) British

D) Mongolian

Answer · why

B) Japanese

Japanese troops were slowed, but the man-made flood killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians through drowning, famine and plague.

Q 05/05

What do aircraft drop on the frozen Yellow River to break up ice dams before they cause floods?

A) Industrial salt

B) Coal dust

C) Explosives

D) Sandbags

Answer · why

C) Explosives

Explosives dropped from the air shatter ice jams in Inner Mongolia, where collapsing ice dams caused 11 major floods in a century.