Play "Twenty Questions!" - How much do you remember from your school days?

A Friend | JANUARY 14, 2005 | Examiner

[CHARLITE]

I missed 5 out of 20........!! not such a hot score! .....but it's a fun test to take......."back down Memory Lane!"

History Exam...

Everyone over 50 should have a pretty easy time at this exam.
If you are under 50 you can claim a handicap.

This is a History Exam for those who don't mind seeing how much they really remember about what went on in their life.
Get paper and pencil and number from 1 to 20.
Write the letter of each answer and score at the end.
Then, best of all, before you pass this test on, put your score in the subject line!

1. In the 1940s, where were automobile headlight dimmer switches located?
a. On the floor shift knob
b. On the floor board, to the left of the clutch
c. Next to the horn

2. The bottle top of a Royal Crown Cola bottle had holes in it. For what was it used?
a. Capture lightning bugs
b. To sprinkle clothes before ironing
c. Large salt shaker

3. Why was having milk delivered a problem in northern winters?
a. Cows got cold and wouldn't produce milk
b. Ice on highways forced delivery by dog sled
c. Milkmen left deliveries outside of front doors and milk would freeze, expanding and pushing up the cardboard bottle top.

4. What was the popular chewing gum named for a game of chance?
a. Blackjack
b. Gin
c. Craps!

5. What method did women use to look as if they were wearing stockings when none were available due to rationing during W.W.II?
a. Suntan
b. Leg painting
c. Wearing slacks

6. What postwar car turned automotive design on its ear when you couldn't tell whether it was coming or going?
a. Studebaker
b. Nash Metro
c. Tucker

7. Which was a popular candy when you were a kid?
a. Strips of dried peanut butter
b. Chocolate licorice bars
c. Wax coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside

8. How was Butch wax used?
a. To stiffen a flat-top haircut so it stood up
b. To make floors shiny and prevent scuffing
c. On the wheels of roller skates to prevent rust

9. Before inline skates, how did you keep your roller skates attached to your shoes?
a. With clamps, tightened by a skate key
b. Woven straps that crossed the foot
c. Long pieces of twine

10. As a kid, what was considered the best way to reach a decision?
a. Consider all the facts
b. Ask Mom
c. Eeny-meeny-miney-mo

11. What was the most dreaded disease in the 1940's?
a. Smallpox
b. AIDS
c. Polio

12. "I'll be down to get you in a ________, Honey"
a. SUV
b. Taxi
c. Streetcar

13. What was the name of Caroline Kennedy's pet pony?
a. Old Blue
b. Paint
c. Macaroni

14. What was a Duck-and-Cover Drill?
a. Part of the game of hide and seek
b. What you did when your Mom called you in to do chores
c. Hiding under your desk, and covering your head with your arms in an A-bomb drill.

15. What was the name of the Indian Princess on the Howdy Doody show?
a. Princess Summerfallwinterspring
b. Princess Sacajewea
c. Princess Moonshadow

16. What did all the really savvy students do when mimeographed tests were handed out in school?
a. Immediately sniffed the purple ink, as this was believed to get you high
b. Made paper airplanes to see who could sail theirs out the window
c. Wrote another pupil's name on the top, to avoid their failure

17. Why did your Mom shop in stores that gave Green Stamps with purchases?
a. To keep you out of mischief by licking the backs, which tasted like bubble gum
b. They could be put in special books and redeemed for various household items
c. They were given to the kids to be used as stick-on tattoos

18. Praise the Lord, and pass the _________?
a. Meatballs
b. Dames
c. Ammunition

19. What was the name of the singing group that made the song "Cabdriver" a hit?
a. The Ink Spots
b. The Supremes
c. The Esquires

20. Who left his heart in San Francisco?
a. Tony Bennett
b. Xavier Cugat
c. George Gershwin

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Answers below, in first comment! :)

[CHARLITE]

ANSWERS

1. b) On the floor, to the left of the clutch. Hand controls, popular in Europe, took till the late '60s to catch on.

2. b) To sprinkle clothes before ironing. Who had a steam iron?

3. c) Cold weather caused the milk to freeze and expand, popping the bottle top.

4. a) Blackjack Gum.

5. b) Special makeup was applied, followed by drawing a seam down the back of the leg with eyebrow pencil.

6. a) 1946 Studebaker.

7. c) Wax coke bottles containing super-sweet colored water.

8. a) Wax for your flat top (butch) haircut.

9. a) With clamps, tightened by a skate key, which you wore on a shoestring around your neck.

10. c) Eeny-meeny-miney-mo.

11. c) Polio. In beginning of August, swimming pools were closed, movies and other public gathering places were closed to try to prevent spread of the disease.

12. b) Taxi. Better be ready by half-past eight!

13. c) Macaroni.

14. c) Hiding under your desk, and covering your head with your arms in an A-bomb drill.

15. a) Princess Summerfallwinterspring. She was another puppet.

16. a) Immediately sniffed the purple ink to get a high.

17. b) Put in a special stamp book, they could be traded for household items at the Green Stamp store.

18. c) Ammunition, and we'll all be free.

19. a) The widely famous 50's group: The Inkspots.

20. a) Tony Bennett, and he sounds just as good today..

[Repub4bush]

I must really be bored I took the test...LOL

I missed 5 out of 20 also. I am 45, so I guess I am supposed to miss more LOL

[highlander_UW]

I also took the test...missed 4...I'm 47. Much of this predates me, actually.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

I missed 5. I'm 38.

[A_perfect_lady]

Wow. Only 2 truly stumped me, and I'm only 39. Ah, but I was raised by my grandparents, on a farm in Michigan. So I was born in '65, but I was raised in the 40s. LOL!

[dr_pat]

I missed two (for an A-minus, right?), but only because where I grew up, the rhythm phrase we learned for making decisions was "ensy-peensy-skivery-dick". Oh, yeah, and the Inkspots.

...but I was only guessing on that...

[CzarNicky]

I got 17 out of 20 and I am only 31

[PolishProud]

I'm 68 and didn't miss one answer

[vetvetdoug]

I'm 51 and missed the indian princess from Howdy Doody. For some reason she escaped my memory. Buffalo Bob was my hero.

[506trooper]

I'm an old f@rt 58 - got them all, though I'm not sure I should be happy about it,

[Repub4bush]

OK then you have an excuse for being young and missing only 2.

Boy I am glad you mentioned that farm, or I'd have thought you were lying about your age....LOL

[Keith in Iowa]

I only missed 4 and I'm younger than you...but not much :)

[stylin19a]

I missed 2.
For extra credit...Howdy Doody had an evil twin...what was his name ?

[A_perfect_lady]

My situation was pretty unusual. My mother was the youngest of six, Grandma had her when she herself was 45! Darn old! So I was raised by people born in 1901. We lived on a dirt road, on an 80-acre farm, complete with cows, chickens, corncribs, outhouse, silos, hornet's nests, a well, and flowerboxes made of discarded tires. My sandbox was one of Grandpa's old John Deere tractor tires, just tossed on its side and filled with sand. Once a snake cropped up in my sandbox, and Grandma, tough old bird that she was, fished it out with a garden hoe and chopped it to bits in the driveway.

Yep. I'm not that old. But I'm old.

[KimmyJaye]

Huh. I missed one.

And I remember doing #16 and it sure wasn't to get high. It's cuz it smelled awesome...

[Larry Lucido]

I'm 48 and missed 2. Had to guess on a few of them.

Missed taxi and eenie meenie (seemed like a trick question, since it's still popular now).

[NutCrackerBoy]

bump to the top

[chaosagent]

Actually I believe that Princess Summerfallwinterspring was both a puppet and real person at various times.

[llevrok]

I'm 54. Got them all too. I recall No. 10 and when it changed from "catch a ___ by the toe" to "catch a tiger by the toe". Times change..for the better some times.

[dr_pat]

Howdy Doody had an evil twin...what was his name?

Ted Koppel?