May Smart People's Quiz

A lot of people have been fooled by our April Fools' Quizzes. Can you guess the correct answers to the questions that were posed?
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: April 3, 2019
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First submittedApril 3, 2019
Times taken11,033
Average score45.0%
Rating3.67
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Hint
April Fools'
Correct
In what country was President Obama born?
Kenya
United States
What is the capital of Turkey?
Istanbul
Ankara
What is the national animal of Canada?
Moose
Beaver
What is 2 + 3 * 5 + 6?
31
23
What is the biggest country that starts with the letter A?
America
Australia
What is the word for a young horse?
Pony
Foal
What was the capital of the Incan Empire?
Machu Picchu
Cusco
What is the rainiest major city in the U.S.?
Seattle
New Orleans
What spicy green paste can be found at most sushi restaurants?
Wasabi
Horseradish
Who was the first European to discover North America?
Christopher Columbus
Leif Erikson
In what modern-day country would you find the birthplace of Alexander the Great?
Macedonia
Greece
What is the largest part of the U.S. budget?
Military
Social Security
What is the world's fattest country?
United States
Nauru
What was invented by Englishman Tim Berners-Lee?
The Internet
World Wide Web
What is the capital of British Columbia?
Vancouver
Victoria
What country invented the word "soccer"?
America
United Kingdom
What's the biggest city on the island of Hawaii?
Honolulu
Hilo
What do etymologists study?
Insects
Word origins
Correctly spell the capital of Kentucky
Louisville
Frankfort
What U.S. state was home to the Wright Brothers?
North Carolina
Ohio
+4
Level 76
Apr 3, 2019
Arguably Hilo is the rainiest city, unless you think 50-odd thousand population makes it not "major". Maybe specify a population size rather than "major", which is kinda open to interpretation? On my only visit to that city it just rained and rained!
+3
Level 76
Apr 4, 2019
50k people is a medium sized town to me, which just goes to prove your point about it being subjective I guess
+1
Level 90
Apr 4, 2019
I was thinking the other way, that New Orleans isn't major enough. My first inclinations were Miami and Houston.

--edit--

Upon further review, New York gets a tenth of an inch more rain than Houston. I would have never guessed that.

+4
Level 77
Apr 4, 2019
I'd think "major" would be one that most foreigners would be likely to know. New Orleans is tons of times more well-known that Hilo and that's not just because of Katrina.
+1
Level 67
May 1, 2019
Yeah, but because of its culture, not its size. New Orleans is smaller than Colorado Springs, Aurora, Bakersfield, Mesa, Tucson, and some other cities that people probably don't think are "major." I myself think New Orleans is a major city, but that just supports the point that "major" needs some kind of descriptor. I don't think it's just size, because cities like New Orleans and Atlanta are much more "major" to most people than bigger cities like El Paso and Jacksonville.
+2
Level 52
May 1, 2019
Most non-Americans would consider Colorado Springs and Mesa to be part of Denver and Phoenix respectively.
+1
Level 82
Jun 14, 2022
I was under the impression that Colorado Springs was its own metro area separate from Denver, but the point stands. I think metro population is more important to 'major' status than city proper population. Very few people outside the US are going to know of San Bernardino, but most will know of New Orleans, despite the former technically having more people. That's because San Bernardino is really just an expanse of suburbia and not a city in any meaningful, real sense. By contrast New Orleans is at the centre of a metropolitan area of over a million people.
+4
Level 67
Apr 3, 2019
Despite the question reading, "Correctly spell the capital of Kentucky", I definitely got it with the misspelling "Frankfurt".
+2
Level ∞
Apr 3, 2019
Whoops. Automatic type-ins. Now fixed.
+1
Level 85
Apr 3, 2019
With the renaming of Macedonia, is the April Fools version of the Alexander the Great question obsolete?
+4
Level 92
Apr 4, 2019
Why would it be? He was born in the area of Pella, Greece. That area continues to belong to Greece, even though Macedonia changed it's name...
+2
Level 86
May 1, 2019
I think the argument is that, since there's technically no longer a country called "Macedonia," it's no longer a "trick question."
+2
Level 89
Apr 3, 2019
How about a colt?
+2
Level 66
Apr 3, 2019
Or yearling or filly.
+5
Level 86
Apr 4, 2019
The only answer that truly fits is foal. Colt and filly depend on gender, and yearling only describes a horse between the ages of 1 and 2 which is young, but not inclusive of those under the age of 1.
+3
Level 87
Apr 5, 2019
But the general way the question is worded would indicate that any of those answers should work.
+1
Level 66
Apr 3, 2019
Must admit got a couple correct by accident while attempting answers to other questions.
+3
Level 82
Apr 4, 2019
Isn't the Canadian horse also a national animal of Canada?
+6
Level 80
Apr 4, 2019
What's the deal with the wasabi one? Yes wasabi is a Japanese form of horseradish, but the paste made from it and offered at Japanese restaurants does seem normally to be called wasabi, whether it's made from the Japanese or western variety. Presumably I'm missing something - can someone enlighten me?
+1
Level 77
Apr 4, 2019
I agree that was a bit confusing.
+6
Level 73
Apr 4, 2019
japanese restaurants don't serve proper wasabi, they just serve any regular old horseradish with green dye
+3
Level 73
Apr 5, 2019
My neighbor has a couple of Asian/sushi restaurants and he says that real wasabi is way too expensive and way to hard to get because of the difficulty in growing it and that most people don' t know the difference in it anyway.
+2
Level 71
May 1, 2019
Wasabi and horseradish are actually two different species, although they belong to the same family of plants.
+5
Level 58
May 1, 2019
Isn't horseradish an instrument?
+2
Level 75
Apr 5, 2019
Surprised, and gratified, that no one is complaining about the math question.
+4
Level 69
Apr 6, 2019
The quiz is young. Give it time :-/
+1
Level 45
May 4, 2019
lol my brain automatically supplied brackets that aren't there so I had to go back and think hard to work out how that was the answer :P
+1
Level 69
Apr 6, 2019
How did the Naruans (?) get so fat? I know they used to be rich, but I thought those halcyon days were over.
+1
Level 74
Apr 8, 2019
The BMI is not canon.
+1
Level 84
Apr 8, 2019
When they got filthy rich, they changed their fishing and agriculture-based diet and lifestyle, and started a more sedentary lifestyle with all the goodies from the Western world...

Until they weren't rich anymore. However, when that happened, they couldn't go back to the fishing and agriculture-based diet and lifestyle, making their health an awful mess.

TL;DR: Take the "couch potato" stereotype so much applied to Americans, put it in a Pacific island and add turbo: You have nowadays Nauruans.

+4
Level ∞
May 1, 2019
There's a genetic component as well. Samoans (and probably Nauruans too), are much more likely to have a gene associated with obesity.
+1
Level 87
Jul 15, 2023
The main reason is the one given above. High calorie diets were required for the extremely physical lifestyle island peoples used to have - subsistence farming, fishing and operating large canoes in strong ocean currents. Now they drive taxis glugging gallons of sugary soda and eating some of the unhealthiest food I have ever seen anywhere in the world. The majority is imported from the USA. This applies almost equally to Samoa, Tonga and to a lesser extent Fiji and Tuvalu. It’s a good example of how damaging contact between “civilised” people and indigenous folk has been over the years.
+6
Level 82
May 1, 2019
Was this posted today because it's my birthday? Am I a May Smart Person?
+4
Level ∞
May 1, 2019
Happy Birthday!
+1
Level 37
May 2, 2019
wait that's my bday too
+1
Level 41
May 1, 2019
So irritated at getting the highest US expenditure as I guessed welfare because that's what we call social security in Australia
+3
Level 72
May 1, 2019
Is welfare acceptable for social security?
+1
Level 71
May 1, 2019
Another very US-centric quiz.
+3
Level 62
May 1, 2019
Boo hoo.
+1
Level 65
May 8, 2019
...which is located on a US web site. What is your point? The creators of this US-based web site go out of their way to make non-US centric quizzes for those such as you. And non-US users are not the majority of the quiztakers here. So, if you ask me, they do a pretty darn good job of catering to you.
+1
Level 69
May 1, 2019
Would "languages" not be an appropriate answer for what etymologists study?
+1
Level 66
May 1, 2019
The study of languages, i.e., linguistics, is a more inclusive category. It includes etymology, but it also includes grammar, syntax, phonemes, etc. To answer the clue with "language" is not to be wrong in an abstract sense, since all languages have words, but it isn't correct owing to a lack of precision.
+1
Level 66
May 1, 2019
If simply word(s) is accepted, which i tried first to see if it worked before adding the essential "origins of" part. Then i feel languages should be accepted too. They dont study words, but the origin of them. Same logic.
+1
Level 50
May 2, 2019
Social Security is NOT part of the federal government a law passed in 1990 declared it not part of the federal budget
+1
Level 47
May 6, 2019
Then why does the deposit detail say US treasury?
+1
Level 65
May 8, 2019
I am not an expert here, so this is just me speculating. But, I gather that the social security tax withholding that most of us find on our pay stubs is not enough to cover the costs of the program. There are many who don't pay into it, but still draw from it, such as those who are here illegally and have managed to get into the system. Also, because our government does a horrible job of managing anything, especially when it comes to money, mismanagement of the fund has likely also contributed to shortages. So, I assume that the federal budget must include something to keep social security functioning. Again, this is my completely uneducated opinion.
+1
Level 74
May 29, 2019
It is part of the budget. You might be confused with mandatory vs discretionary budget. It's not part of the discretionary budget but it is the majority of the mandatory budget. Combine mandatory and discretionary budget and it is still the majority of the overall budget.
+1
Level 51
Jun 28, 2019
Why are most questions about U.S?
+1
Level 79
Apr 2, 2021
Wasabi should be correct.
+1
Level 83
Apr 2, 2021
Nah
+2
Level 83
Apr 2, 2021
My favorite thing about this quiz is that in the April fools one half of the comments complained about Louisville not being the capital of Kentucky, but only a third of the people actually know the answer here.
+1
Level 71
Apr 9, 2021
Is there a reason 'colt' isn't an answer for young horse? Just wondering.
+1
Level 76
Apr 1, 2022
Presumably because "colt" refers specifically to a young male horse, while "foal" is the correct general term.
+1
Level 52
May 26, 2021
a young horse can be called a horse, just a young one
+1
Level 72
Oct 24, 2023
Wait... so you're saying those April Fools' Quizzes were all wrong??? :O What has JetPunk become, a bunch of liars and cheats and deceivers?