The Great American Election Quiz

Have you been paying attention? Test your knowledge of the contest, the candidates, and the battleground states in the spotlight tonight

Round 1: Campaign trail trivia

1. What is Joe the Plumber's real name? And how did John McCain mangle it in the third presidential candidates' debate?

2. What is "County Biden"?

3. Each presidential and vice-presidential candidate (and their spouse) has a Secret Service moniker. Can you guess the people to whom the codenames refer?

a. Renegade

b. Renaissance

c. Celtic

d. Capri

e. Phoenix

f. Parasol

g. Denali

h. Driller

4. What is "Airacuda"?

5. From which Bob Dylan song did the Bill Ayers-fronted underground organisation The Weathermen take their name?

6. What's the significance of Amtrak to the vice-presidential race in the 2008 election?

7. Why is Sarah Palin's daughter called Piper?

8. To which gaffes by Barack Obama and John McCain in this year's campaign do these key words refer:

a. Bitter

b. Translators

c. Fundamentals

d. Homes

9. Complete this quotation from Rev Jeremiah Wright, Obama's former pastor: "Not God bless America..."

10. From which part of Alaska is it possible to see Russia (Cited by Sarah Palin as an example of her foreign policy expertise in an ABC interview on 11 September)?

11. Who are David Plouffe and Rick Davis, respectively?

12. In which year was Obama elected to the United States Senate?

13. Which sports team has its home in the stadium where Obama made his keynote speech at the 2008 Democratic Convention?

14. Who, in January 2007, described Obama as "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," before adding: "I mean, that's a storybook, man"?

15. Which of the following Alaskan stereotypes did Saturday Night Live comedian Amy Poehler not mention in her Sarah Palin rap ("My name is Sarah Palin you all know me/ Vice-president nominee of the GOP...")

a. The smell of fish

b. Drilling for oil

c. Inuit settlers

d. Proximity to Russia

Round 2: Name the fictional presidents and the movies in which they featured

See film photos above

Round 3: States of the Union – true or false?

1. Residents of Pacific Grove, California can be fined $500 for "molesting butterflies".

2. The state of Missouri boasts the largest breeding population of the transparent frog in the United States.

3. "I'm from Missouri" means "I'm sceptical of the matter and not easily convinced".

4. OJ Simpson's nickname is "The Juice" because he was born in Florida, the "Orange State".

5. The Coen Brothers' film Fargo was filmed not in the North Dakota city, but in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

6. North Carolina's Biltmore House, America's biggest home, was intended to be the official residence of a new president when the South rose again.

7. Anyone convicted of animal cruelty in Sedalia, Missouri is sentenced to a month's community service in the county animal shelter.

8. Akron, Ohio is the home of the first breakfast cereal, the first synthetic rubber tyre and the first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

9. New Jersey's nickname is the "Armpit of America".

10. The state insect of Montana is the caterpillar.

11. Strawberry Point, Iowa is the home of the world's largest strawberry.

12. Wisconsin produces more pumpkins than any other state.

13. Iced tea was invented at the St Louis World's Fair in Missouri in 1904.

14. New Jersey has more golfers per capita than any other city in the country.

15. In Montana earlier this year, a young grizzly bear was caught with its paw in a beehive after travelling 20 miles to get at the honey.

16. Milton Snavely Hershey, founder of the Hershey Chocolate Company in Pennsylvania, died in 1945 by falling into a vat at his factory.

17. The official state drink of North Dakota is milk.

18. North Carolina's state dance, a form of swing that evolved from the jitterbug, is called the Shag.

19. In 2006, world speed-eating champion Joey Chestnut set a world record in Iowa by poking down 4.3kg of pulled pork in five minutes.

20. In 1970, the writer Hunter S Thompson ran for Sheriff of Aspen, Colorado.

Round 4: The name game

Match these slogans to their states

1. Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places

2. Great Faces, Great Places

3. Big Sky Country

4. The First State

5. Grand Canyon State

6. _________ On My Mind

7. The Islands of Aloha

8. The Welcome Mat's Always Out

9. So Many Things To Do – So Close Together

10. Find Yourself Here

11. _________ Is On The Move

12. _________ And You Are Perfect Together

13. The Heart Of America's West

14. Sounds Good To Me

15. The Greatest Snow On Earth

16. It's Like A Whole Other Country

17. _________ Is For Lovers

18. A Million Miles From Monday

19. The South's Warmest Welcome

20. Wild And Wonderful

21. Come As You Are – Leave Different

22. Like No Place On Earth

23. Native America

24. We'd Love To Show You Around

25. Unforgettable

26. Always In Season

27. Heart Of It All

28. North! To _________

29. The Road Less Traveled

30. Things Look Different Here

Answers...

Round 1: Campaign trail trivia

1. Joe Wurzelbacher (McCain referred to him as "Wurzelburger" in the third debate.

2. It's what Joe Biden's staff call his airborne office, because it looks like a flying family reunion. Frequent flyers include his son Hunter and niece Missy.

3. a. Barack Obama, b. Michelle Obama, c. Joe Biden, d. Jill Biden, e. John McCain, f. Cindy McCain, g. Sarah Palin, h. Todd Palin

4. Sarah Palin's plane, a spin on her basketball nickname, "Sarahcuda".

5. "Subterranean Homesick Blues".

6. Since 1972, Joe Biden has famously used public trains to commute back and forth between his home in Delaware and Washington DC.

7. The family own a red Piper Cub floatplane, which they use for moose-hunting trips in the Alaskan wilderness.

8. a. Obama's self-confessed "boneheaded" remark, which nearly cost him the Democratic nomination. Having been portrayed as an Ivy League elitist in the Pennsylvania primary, Obama was then quoted at a San Francisco fundraiser seemingly dismissing the alienation of some rural Americans. "It's not surprising... they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations..."

b. Showing off his foreign policy expertise, Obama said sending Arabic translators to Iraq was pulling resources from Afghanistan... where they do not speak Arabic. Well, perhaps some al-Qa'ida members do, but it sounded dumb at the time.

c. On 16 September, as the world's stock markets teetered and the giant investment banks Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch fell, John McCain declared: "The fundamentals of our economy are strong..." The financial crisis and the subsequent Bush administration bail-out, more than any other issue, defined the latter stages of the campaign.

d. McCain was stumped by a reporter who asked how many homes he and his wife Cindy owned. "I think... I'll have to get my staff get back to you," he replied. It turned out he and his wife owned at least seven homes, some worth more than $1m each. Hardly ideal for a man trying to demonstrate he was in touch with ordinary voters.

9. "God damn America."

10. The island of Little Diomede (but it is often blanketed in fog).

11. The campaign managers; for Obama (Plouffe) and McCain (Davis).

12. 2004

13. The Denver Broncos NFL team has its home at Invesco Field, otherwise known as Mile High Stadium. It has a capacity of 76,100.

14. Joe Biden

15. d

Round 2: Fictional presidents and movies they appeared in

1. Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley, Dr Strangelove (1964)

2. Bill Pullman as President Thomas J Whitmore, Independence Day (1996)

3. Michael Douglas as President Andrew Shepherd, The American President (1995)

4. Morgan Freeman as President Tim Beck, Deep Impact (1998)

5. John Travolta as President Jack Stanton, Primary Colors (1998)

6. Harrison Ford as President James Marshall, Air Force One (1997)

7. Jack Nicholson as President James Dale, Mars Attacks! (1996)

8. Kevin Kline as President Dave Kovic, Dave (1993)

9. Dennis Quaid as President Joseph Staton, American Dreamz (2006)

10. Jeff Bridges as President Jackson Evans, The Contender (2000)

Round 3: True or false

1. True 2. False 3. True 4. False 5. True 6. False

7. False 8. True 9. True 10. False 11. True 12. False 13. True 14. False 15. True 16. False 17. True 18. True 19. False 20. True

Round 4: States and their slogans

1. South Carolina 2. South Dakota 3. Montana 4. Delaware 5. Arizona 6. Georgia 7. Hawaii 8. Indiana 9. Maryland 10. California 11. Maine 12. New Jersey 13. Kansas 14. Tennessee 15. Utah 16. Texas 17. Virginia 18. Illinois 19. Mississippi 20. West Virginia 21. Louisiana 22. Wyoming 23. Oklahoma 24. Massachusetts 25. Alabama 26. Kentucky 27. Ohio 28. Alaska 29. New Hampshire 30. Oregon