Check Your Mental Acuity

Below are 9 simple questions. They're straight questions, with straight answers. No tricks. See how many you can answer before looking at the answers.

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backwards?

3. Of all the vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every years. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

5. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine. It hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters "dw", and they are all common words. Name two of them.

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter "S".

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ANSWERS:

1. The one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends -- Boxing.

2. The North American landmark constantly moving backwards -- Niagara Falls. (The rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it every minute.)

3. The only two vegetables that can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons -- Asparagus and rhubarb.

4. The fruit with its seeds on the outside -- Strawberry.

5. How did the pear get inside the brandy bottle? It grew inside the bottle. The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stem.

6. Three English words beginning with "dw" -- dwarf, dwell, and dwindle.

7. Fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar -- period, coma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parentheses, braces, and ellipses.

8. The only vegetable or fruit never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh -- lettuce.

9. Six or more things you can wear on your feet beginning with "S" -- shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, and stilts.

How well did you do?