P.B.K. IQ

Last week, Harvard announced the newest crop of seniors to be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa...and the rest of the student body felt wildly inadequate. But, perhaps this painful reminder that as smart as we may be, there is always someone who is smarter should not be taken too seriously. How brainy could these kids really be? FM puts five representatives from the 48 inductees to the test:



1. What’s the capital of Suriname?

Taylor M. Owings ’08: “I mean I can Google it, but I’m going to go ahead and just be honest and say that I’ve never heard of that country.”



2. What’s the deepest lake in the world?

Tony D. Qian ’08: “This would just be a guess...maybe the Dead Sea. That’s a guess, it’s probably wrong.”



3. Can you spell appoggiatura, the 2005 Scripps National Spelling Bee’s winning word?

Rocksheng Zhong ’08: “A-P-O-G-I-T-O-R-A.”



4. Which of the following is most closely related to a whale? 1) manatee; 2) mouse; 3) pig; 4) kangaroo?

Maureen E. Boyle ’08: “I’m going to guess the obvious one, although I’m sure this is a trick question. So, I’ll just guess manatee.”



5. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Boyle: “A 3-pound woodchuck. Then the answer is definitely 30 pounds of wood. Yeah, I’m sure about that one.”



6. If Barbie’s so popular, why do you have to buy all her friends?

Boyle: “I think it probably has something to do with Ec 10, a class I’ve never taken.”

Owings: “Because she has to have some way to afford her dream car.”



The correct answers:

1. Paramaribo

2. Lake Baikal

3. Appoggiatura

4. Pig

5./6. How the heck should we know?