Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

When fear gets a Greek name

Agoraphobia literally means "fear of the marketplace" - from the Greek agora, the open public square where citizens gathered. It was coined in the late nineteenth century, when psychiatrists grouped it with other anxiety disorders. In practice, agoraphobia is often less about open spaces themselves than about the fear of being trapped, helpless or unable to escape. That is why it frequently overlaps with panic disorder, and why crowded trains or queues can trigger it just as readily as empty fields.

Reading numbers the Roman way

Roman numerals are essentially additive: L is 50, X is 10 and V is 5. So LXXX is 50 + 10 + 10 + 10, or 80, while LX is simply 60. The subtractive trick - IV for 4, IX for 9 - only appears when a smaller symbol sits before a larger one. The system survived long after Rome because it is handy for clocks, chapter headings, film sequels and monarchs' names, where a compact, decorative numeral beats a plain digit.

The Alps are not one country's property

The Alps arc roughly 1,200 kilometres through eight countries, with Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Slovenia among them. That makes the quiz's Italian answer correct but far from exclusive: Italy holds the southern slopes and peaks such as Mont Blanc on its border with France. Austria, meanwhile, is so identified with the range that Vienna, its capital, sits well outside the mountains - a reminder that a country's alpine image and its geography do not always match.

A river running through Siberia

The Ob is one of the great rivers of Siberia, flowing north from the Altai region through Russia and emptying into the Arctic Ocean. With its main tributary, the Irtysh, it forms one of the longest river systems in Asia. Its basin covers a vast stretch of western Siberia, including oil and gas country, and the river freezes for months each winter - a fact that has shaped settlement and transport across the region.