Skip to main content

News quiz 2016




Photos by Chatham House [CC BY 2.0], 

Marie Lan-Nguyen [CC BY 2.0], 

wowser [CC BY-BC 2.0] on Flickr

There has been an unusually high number of celebrity deaths this year - so many that I could have built the whole quiz around it! Anyhow, here's my end-of-year offering in its traditional format, focusing on some key news stories of 2016. Like last year, I've tried to keep it light-hearted as much as possible. Politics is still there, but it's fairly evenly balanced by sports, travel and technology news.







The quiz comes in two levels:

- Intermediate (B1+/2-)

- Advanced (B2+ and up)



and is accompanied by a 10-page teachers' guide (scroll down) full of ideas on how to use the quiz in class and to exploit the lexis.



Don't forget to check back in the first week of the new year when I'll publish a follow up with vocabulary review exercises and activities.




UPDATE: Click HERE for vocabulary review activities




Happy New Year!




Quiz




1. Starting with the sad news of David Bowie's passing in January, 2016 was
a particularly gloomy year for celebrity deaths. Which of the numerous celebrities who died in 2016 is famous for the 1980s hit Purple Rain?



2. The outbreak of which deadly virus posed a threat to the eagerly anticipated 2016 Olympics in Rio?



3. In April 2016, an unprecedented leak of thousands of documents that came to be known as the Panama Papers caused an uproar and prompted criminal investigations in several countries. What did the documents reveal?



4. In summer 2016, scores of people were killed or injured in Nice, France, when a terrorist rammed a huge truck through festive crowds on the famous seafront promenade. What were they crowds celebrating?



5. What mobile game, in which players capture virtual monsters often causing nuisance in the streets, was all the rage in 2016?



6. In the wake of what July 2016 event did Turkish President Erdogan declare a state of emergency, detain members of the armed forces and crack down on the media?



7. In an unprecedented vote on 23 June 2016, the United Kingdom decided to leave the EU. How many countries are there in the EU now?



 8. Dozens of Russian athletes faced the threat of being banned from the 2016 Olympic Games. What was the reason for the ban?



9. Throughout the election campaign leading up to Donald Trump’s historic victory, he maintained a hard-line stance on immigration. Ironically his wife Melania initially came to the US as an immigrant. What country did she come from?



10. What smartphone was banned from flights in autumn 2016 due to fire hazard, following a series of incidents in which the device burst into flames?



11. Who is Bana al-Abed and why did she capture the world’s attention with her tweets in 2016?




12. Which popular tourist attraction in China had to close in September 2016 after being overwhelmed by a large influx of visitors in the first two weeks of its operation?



13. Chocolate lovers went into meltdown in November 2016 after the makers of Toblerone announced a drastic measure against rising costs. What did they decide to do?



14. The most decorated Olympian of all time ended his illustrious career on a high after winning his 23rd gold medal at the Summer Olympics in Rio. What’s his name?



15. The final of the Euro 2016 football tournament, in which Portugal defeated host nation France 1-0, will also be remembered for the tears of the Portuguese team’s captain. What’s his name?



16. Who became the first musician to win the Nobel Prize in Literature?






Advanced level with answers


 










Intermediate level with answers







Teachers' notes




Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Women and children overboard

It's the  Catch-22  of clinical trials: to protect pregnant women and children from the risks of untested drugs....we don't test drugs adequately for them. In the last few decades , we've been more concerned about the harms of research than of inadequately tested treatments for everyone, in fact. But for "vulnerable populations,"  like pregnant women and children, the default was to exclude them. And just in case any women might be, or might become, pregnant, it was often easier just to exclude us all from trials. It got so bad, that by the late 1990s, the FDA realized regulations and more for pregnant women - and women generally - had to change. The NIH (National Institutes of Health) took action too. And so few drugs had enough safety and efficacy information for children that, even in official circles, children were being called "therapeutic orphans."  Action began on that, too. There is still a long way to go. But this month there was a sign that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Benefits Of Healthy eating Turmeric every day for the body

One teaspoon of turmeric a day to prevent inflammation, accumulation of toxins, pain, and the outbreak of cancer.  Yes, turmeric has been known since 2.5 centuries ago in India, as a plant anti-inflammatory / inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and also have a good detox properties, now proven to prevent Alzheimer's disease and cancer. Turmeric prevents inflammation:  For people who
Post a Comment
Read more

Not a word was spoken (but many were learned)

Video is often used in the EFL classroom for listening comprehension activities, facilitating discussions and, of course, language work. But how can you exploit silent films without any language in them? Since developing learners' linguistic resources should be our primary goal (well, at least the blogger behind the blog thinks so), here are four suggestions on how language (grammar and vocabulary) can be generated from silent clips. Split-viewing Split-viewing is an information gap activity where the class is split into groups with one group facing the screen and the other with their back to the screen. The ones facing the screen than report on what they have seen - this can be done WHILE as well as AFTER they watch. Alternatively, students who are not watching (the ones sitting with their backs to the screen) can be send out of the classroom and come up with a list of the questions to ask the 'watching group'. This works particularly well with action or crime scenes with ...
Post a Comment
Read more