Beyond the answers - interesting background to this quiz

The instrument that needs a double reed

The oboe belongs to the woodwind family, alongside the clarinet, flute and bassoon. What sets it apart is its double reed: two thin blades of cane that vibrate against each other to produce the sound. That design gives the oboe its distinctive, slightly nasal tone, and it is also why the instrument is so notoriously difficult to play - and why orchestras traditionally tune to its A before a performance.

A capital that is not the biggest city

Cardiff has been the capital of Wales since 1955, but it is not the country's largest urban area by every measure - Swansea and the south Wales valleys together form a heavily populated region. Cardiff grew rapidly in the nineteenth century as a coal-exporting port, and today it is home to the Senedd, the Welsh Parliament, which sits in Cardiff Bay.

Camus and the idea of the absurd

Albert Camus published "The Stranger" in 1942, the same year as his essay "The Myth of Sisyphus". Both works explore what Camus called the absurd: the tension between our desire for meaning and an indifferent universe. His protagonist, Meursault, is often read as a man who refuses to perform the emotions society expects of him - which is precisely what condemns him.

Faulkner and a family in decline

William Faulkner set much of his fiction in Yoknapatawpha County, a fictional place modelled on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where he lived. "The Sound and the Fury", published in 1929, tells the story of the Compson family across four sections, each with a different narrator - including one with a stream-of-consciousness style that shifts in time without warning. The title comes from a line in Shakespeare's "Macbeth".

Oman and the edge of the Arabian Peninsula

Oman sits on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, in Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman. It is one of the few countries in the region with a long tradition of seafaring - Omani sailors once traded as far as East Africa and India. Its capital, Muscat, and the port of Salalah remain important to its economy today.