6 questions, easy to hard, then Ivy's pick. Here is every answer, and why.
Answer: Sparta. The 'agoge'. Spartan women, by contrast, owned land and exercised in public, which scandalised other Greeks. 'Laconic' comes from Laconia, the Spartan region, because Spartans wasted no words.
Answer: African grey parrot. Alex, an African grey studied for 30 years, could name colours, count and ask questions; his last words to his researcher were 'You be good. I love you.'
Answer: Hallucination. The model predicts plausible text, not true text, so an invented court case reads just like a real one. Lawyers have been fined for filing briefs with cases that did not exist.
Answer: True. Contested from 1900 to 1920. In 1908 a team of Liverpool policemen beat the Americans, who protested that the police had cheated by wearing their heavy work boots.
Answer: Puyi. Crowned at two, deposed at six, later installed by Japan as puppet ruler of Manchuria, then 're-educated' by the communists and finished his life as a Beijing gardener. Bertolucci's 1987 film about him won nine Oscars.
Answer: 122. Jeanne Calment, Arles, France, 1875–1997. She met Van Gogh as a girl, took up fencing at 85 and smoked until she was 117.
6 new questions. Free, no sign-up. Ivy judges every answer.
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