2000 Clued-In Questions: Challenges from Trivia's Clueniverse

Trivia fascinates us. We enter trivia contests. We play online trivia games. We challenge each other. We cite trivia, for example, by noting that legendary showman P.T. Barnum liked hyperbole and would have promoted this book by saying, “Welcome to “2000 Clued-In Questions,” the most outstanding clue-based trivia challenge book in the world.”

“2000 Clued-In Questions” is a different kind of trivia book. It contains two thousand moderate to difficult questions, made easier with a hidden clue in each question.

Your challenge is two-fold: to find the clue in the question and then to use it to answer the question. If you know the answer to the question, you can look for the clue. The clues are what makes this book different. They can be subtle. They can be homonyms or synonyms. The clue could be the number of the question, or foreign words, deliberate errors, pop culture references, words within words, or numerous other devices you will find as you go through this book.

A few sample questions from “2000 Clued-In Questions” illustrate how a clued-in question works:

1. Which state has sent only Republicans to the U.S. Senate since 1938? One can says this is dominance by the GOP. (Answer: Kansas. Clue: “can says.” While grammatically incorrect, it sounds like “Kansas.”)

2. As of December 2015, who had the most Twitter followers, with almost 79 million, one of whom might be actress Kate Hudson? (Answer: Katy Perry. Clue: “Kate Hudson,” which is a version of Ms. Perry’s birth name, Katheryn Hudson.)

3. Be a ten o’clock scholar and tell me how many pounds are in a tonne. (Answer: 2,200. Clue: “ten o’clock scholar;” 10:00pm in international time is “2200.”)

4. Who was the first woman to be crowned Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsman of the Year?” (Answer: Billie Jean King. Clue: “crowned,” a reference to a king.)

“2000 Clued-In Questions” tests your knowledge of everything from actors to words beginning with the letter “Z.” Do you think you know music and television? History and people born after January 1, 1990? Miscellaneous topics? These are among the eighty categories that will challenge you.

And “2000 Clued-In Questions” will challenge you. Consider the scoring system. A perfect score is 6,000. More than 3,000 is passing, more than 4,000 is excellent, and more than 5,000 is extraordinary. Score above 5,500 and I will let you tell me about your winnings on “Jeopardy!

“2000 Clued-In Questions” originated as a series of daily questions over a number of years between a friend and me. We both scored well on this. I would like to think it is because we both belong to Mensa and not because I wrote the questions.

Enjoy “2000 Clued-In Questions.”