Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

A capital that tourists keep confusing with the beach

San Jose is the capital of Costa Rica, yet many travellers picture the country only through its coastlines and rainforests. The city sits in the Central Valley, a highland basin that has long concentrated the country's political and cultural life. Costa Rica's location on the narrow isthmus between North and South America helps explain its remarkable biodiversity, which is one reason its capital is often just a stopover on the way to the parks.

The quiet pull of a magnet

Iron's strong response to magnets comes down to its atomic structure and the way its electrons can align. This behaviour is called ferromagnetism, and iron is the classic example, which is why it turns up in so many everyday magnets and motors. Nitrogen and aluminium behave very differently: aluminium is not strongly magnetic in the same way, despite being a metal, which is a useful reminder that not all metals respond to magnets alike.

Dan Brown and the art of the puzzle

Angels & Demons introduced readers to Robert Langdon, the Harvard symbologist who later returned in The Da Vinci Code. Dan Brown's thrillers mix real locations, artworks and historical rumours with fast-paced conspiracies, which is exactly why they spark so much debate. The novels are fiction, but they have sent plenty of readers to look up the churches, sculptures and secret societies mentioned in their pages.

Elizabeth, Darcy and a very famous first line

Pride and Prejudice opens with one of the most quoted sentences in English literature, about a single man in possession of a good fortune being in want of a wife. Jane Austen's novel follows Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy through misunderstandings, pride and eventual understanding, while Mr Bennet watches it all with dry amusement. More than two centuries on, the book still shapes how readers imagine courtship in Regency England.

Togas, tunics and who actually wore them

The tunic was a basic garment across the ancient Mediterranean, and the Romans wore it in various forms, often layered under a toga for citizens. It is easy to lump ancient cultures together, but the Maya and Aztec civilisations of Mesoamerica had their own distinctive clothing traditions, shaped by climate, status and local materials. Recognising those differences is what makes a question like this more than a simple label.