Podcast Script

Welcome back to the LL Study Guide podcast, your fast, friendly review for busy quizzers. We’re walking through Match Day 13 from season 107 today. As always, if you want the full write‑ups, extra links, and deeper dives, you can check the study notes on our website at llstudyguide.com.

This set really leans on names, initials, and labels doing a lot of the work, and it jumps all over the 20th century while it’s at it. We’ve got a New York literary institution, an ’80s superhero sequel, a misnamed dim sum favorite, a very famous grass, a hyphenated African country, and a long‑running family dictatorship in Central America.

Let’s get into it with Question 1.

Question 1 reads: LITERATURE - The MLS team New York Red Bulls is often abbreviated RBNY, probably most likely because the team’s formal name is Red Bull New York, and also perhaps because NYRB has been in use since 1963 as the initialism for what literary periodical?

The correct answer is: The New York Review of Books.

So NYRB in a literary or intellectual context is almost always pointing you toward The New York Review of Books, often shortened just to “the NYRB.” It’s a semi‑monthly magazine founded in 1963 in New York City, and it’s known for long, essay‑style reviews and big think‑pieces on politics, culture, and history. If you imagine the classic highbrow review where someone writes 6,000 words about a new biography and also the fate of liberal democracy, that’s the vibe.

From a quiz perspective, the key here is the initialism. The letters fit perfectly: New, York, Review, Books. The question nudges you with that 1963 date and the word “literary,” steering you away from a publisher or newspaper and toward a magazine title. And it even gives you RBNY for the soccer team as a contrast clue.

Adjacent things worth knowing: first, there’s the imprint New York Review Books, sometimes called NYRB Classics, which publishes those distinctive paperbacks of older or overlooked works. That’s directly tied to the magazine and reinforces the NYRB abbreviation. Second, this fits into a broader pattern of New York cultural periodicals: The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and The New York Review of Books are all regular quiz fodder. Finally, this touches the world of prestigious literary reviews in general—London Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, and so on. If you want a quick way to solidify those, check the study notes on our website where we group some of these side by side.

All right, let’s move from literary reviews to superheroes.

Question 2 says: FILM - While the first Patty Jenkins/Gal Gadot Wonder Woman film was set at the end of World War I, its sequel was set in what year?

The answer is: 1984.

The sequel’s full title is Wonder Woman 1984, and that’s not subtle. The story takes place in the year 1984, firmly in the Cold War, several decades after the first film’s World War I, 1918 setting. The marketing really leaned into neon colors, shopping malls, and that big, flashy ’80s look.

If you blanked on this, remember that superhero sequels often tack on a year to signal a time jump: X‑Men: Days of Future Past, Captain America: The First Avenger being World War II, and here, Wonder Woman 1984 clearly tells you when we are. It also deliberately echoes George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty‑Four, which helps tie the date to themes of surveillance, manipulation, and power.

Adjacent topics you might want to lock in: one is timeline awareness for major superhero franchises—DCEU versus MCU, when different films are set historically, and which war or era they tie into. Another is the broader cultural weight of the year 1984 itself: the Orwell novel, the Cold War paranoia, and the 1980s aesthetic that keeps showing up in Stranger Things, retro pop, and quiz questions. You’ll find a quick timeline for the two Wonder Woman films and a couple of “1984” cultural hooks in the study notes on our website.

Now from movies we head to the dim sum cart.

Question 3: FOOD/DRINK - The Chinese dim sum dish turnip cake is not actually made with turnips, but with what variety of radish, also common in Japanese cuisine (the name is Japanese for “big root”) where it is served raw, pickled, or as a tsuma garnish?

The answer is: daikon.

Turnip cake, the Cantonese dish you see on dim sum menus, is usually called lo bak go. In English it’s often labeled “turnip cake,” but it’s actually made from shredded white radish—specifically daikon—mixed with rice flour and then steamed and pan‑fried. No Western turnips involved.

The question gives you a great linguistic hook: the radish’s name is Japanese for “big root.” Daikon is written with the characters for “big” and “root,” and it’s that big, white, mild radish you see in Japanese dishes. It’s eaten raw, pickled in things like takuan, or finely shredded as a garnish under sashimi, called tsuma. It’s also often grated as daikon oroshi.

For quiz patterns, two things are helpful here. First, misnamed foods: turnip cake that’s really radish, sweetbreads that aren’t sweet and aren’t bread, Rocky Mountain oysters that aren’t shellfish. When a question draws attention to a misleading name, it’s often pointing at one of those traps. Second, daikon itself shows up a lot when questions mention Japanese pickles, sushi garnishes, or that “big root” translation. If a clue mentions Japanese radish and garnish under sashimi, daikon should be your first thought.

If you want to see pictures of turnip cake and daikon side by side, and maybe pick up a couple of other misnamed foods to remember, check the show notes and study notes on our website.

Let’s shift gears from dim sum to lawns and pasture.

Question 4 asks: SCIENCE - The perennial plant Poa pratensis, native to Europe and Asia and extremely abundant in North America, has a common name that refers to what U.S. state?

The answer is: Kentucky.

Poa pratensis is the scientific name for Kentucky bluegrass. It’s a cool‑season perennial grass that originally comes from Europe and parts of Asia and North Africa, but it’s become incredibly common in North America as both pasture grass and lawn turf. If you picture a classic green American lawn or a bluegrass pasture with horses, you’re probably picturing Kentucky bluegrass.

Even if you didn’t know the Latin name, the question gives you a strong path: it tells you it’s very abundant in North America and that its common name refers to a U.S. state. Once you connect Poa with bluegrass—which is how botanists label the bluegrass genus—you might think of the nickname “The Bluegrass State,” which belongs to Kentucky. So the state in the common name is Kentucky.

Two adjacent patterns to keep in mind. First, state‑plant pairings: Kentucky bluegrass, California poppy, Texas bluebonnet, Florida orange blossom. These come up a lot in both science and general trivia. Second, state nicknames that reflect plants or landscapes: Kentucky the Bluegrass State, Mississippi the Magnolia State, Vermont the Green Mountain State. Knowing that Kentucky is linked with bluegrass gives you multiple angles: if you see bluegrass in a music context, that’s also tied to Kentucky’s Appalachian region and culture.

We’ve got a quick chart of plant‑and‑state linkages in the study notes, so if this felt shaky, it’s worth five minutes to skim.

Now, on to African geography.

Question 5 reads: GEOGRAPHY - What West African capital, a city of around half a million near the Atlantic coast, has been included in the official name of its country since independence to distinguish it from its neighbor to the southeast?

The answer is: Bissau.

Bissau is the capital and largest city of Guinea‑Bissau. It sits near the Atlantic, on the estuary of the Geba River, and its metro population is around half a million people. When the country gained independence from Portugal, they added the capital’s name to the country’s name, becoming Guinea‑Bissau, to distinguish it from the neighboring country of Guinea.

This is a really useful pattern: a country whose name includes its capital. There aren’t many, and Guinea‑Bissau is the go‑to example. The question also gives you “neighbor to the southeast” as a geographic nudge—Guinea lies to the east and south of Guinea‑Bissau.

For adjacent learning, it helps to group the “Guineas” mentally. There are three frequently asked ones:

Guinea – capital Conakry. Guinea‑Bissau – capital Bissau; the capital is in the country’s name. Equatorial Guinea – capital Malabo for now, with a planned move inland to a new capital.

Being able to rattle off those three pairs is a small investment with a big payoff in geography questions. Also, note that Bissau and Guinea‑Bissau come up in news stories about coups and political instability, which can give you real‑world hooks.

We’ve put a little “three Guineas” mini‑chart in the study notes on the website if you want to lock all that in.

Finally, let’s finish with world history and politics.

Question 6 says: WORLD HIST - What was the name of the authoritarian family dynasty, notorious for corruption and repression, that dominated Nicaraguan politics from the 1930s to 1979, starting with the 1936 coup staged by Anastasio (“Tacho”), continuing with his eldest son Luis in the 1950s and 60s, and ending with the resignation of Anastasio (“Tachito”)?

The answer is: Somoza.

This refers to the Somoza family dynasty in Nicaragua. Anastasio Somoza García, nicknamed “Tacho,” took power in the 1930s, essentially controlling the country from his 1936 coup until his assassination in 1956. After him, his elder son Luis Somoza Debayle held the presidency through the late 1950s and early 1960s, while the family still dominated the National Guard and the economy.

Later, the younger son, Anastasio Somoza Debayle—nicknamed “Tachito”—became president, serving in the late 1960s and again through the 1970s. He finally resigned and fled the country in 1979, when the Sandinista revolution toppled the family’s rule. Across those four decades, the Somozas concentrated enormous wealth, controlled most major industries, and maintained power through repression and close ties to the United States during the Cold War.

Quiz‑wise, there are a couple of patterns here. First, Latin American family dictatorships: Somoza in Nicaragua, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, the Duvaliers in Haiti, the Ortegas later in Nicaragua again. Knowing the surnames that stand for “the dictatorship” in a particular country is very helpful. Second, the dates: 1936 to 1979 is a long stretch, which places the Somozas in the same broad Cold War and U.S.‑intervention era as Batista in Cuba, Pinochet in Chile, and other regimes you’ll see linked together in history questions.

If you want to solidify this, the study notes on our site sketch a simple timeline of who ruled when, and tie Somoza to some of the key opposition figures like the Chamorro family and the Sandinistas.

So that’s Match Day 13 in the books. You’ve seen how initials can point you straight to a famous New York magazine, how a movie title can literally tell you its year, how a “turnip cake” secretly hides daikon radish, how a Latin plant name connects to Kentucky’s “Bluegrass State” nickname, how a capital city can end up inside a country’s name, and how one family’s surname can stand in for forty years of Nicaraguan history.

If any of these topics felt shaky—West African capitals, Central American politics, or Asian food terms—don’t worry. Those are exactly the areas where a couple of memorable hooks can give you a huge edge later. You can dive deeper into each of these with links, mnemonics, and quick comparison charts in the study notes on our website at llstudyguide.com.

Thanks for listening today. Keep reviewing, keep building those little connections, and I’ll be back with you for the next match day to walk through another set of six. Until then, happy quizzing, and don’t forget to check the show notes if you want to dig deeper into anything we talked about.