Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

The element that honours a nuclear pioneer

Rutherfordium, symbol Rf, is a synthetic element with atomic number 104. It is named after Ernest Rutherford, the New Zealand-born physicist whose work on the structure of the atom earned him a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1908. Elements this heavy do not occur in nature; they are created in laboratories, atom by atom, and decay within seconds or minutes. Rf sits in the periodic table among the transactinides, a group of superheavy elements that exist only briefly after being produced.

Two writers who reshaped the modern novel

Albert Camus and James Joyce are both central figures of twentieth-century fiction, though they worked in very different registers. Camus, born in Algeria, wrote The Plague, a novel often read as an allegory of human response to catastrophe. Joyce, an Irishman who spent much of his life abroad, published Dubliners in 1914, a collection of short stories that captures ordinary life in his native city with unusual precision. Both writers continue to appear on school and university reading lists around the world.

The Danube, Europe's international river

The Danube flows through more countries than any other river in the world, passing through or along the borders of ten nations before emptying into the Black Sea. Its total length is roughly 2,850 kilometres, making it Europe's second-longest river after the Volga. Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava and Belgrade all sit on its banks, and for centuries it has served as a trade route, a border and a symbol of connections between very different cultures.

The Alps and the countries that share them

The Alps stretch across eight European countries, with Austria among the most closely associated with the range. Around two-thirds of Austria's territory lies within the Alps, which shapes everything from its ski culture to its traditional architecture. Venezuela and Peru, by contrast, belong to the Andes, a completely different mountain system on another continent. Recognising which ranges belong to which countries is a classic geography test.