Podcast Script

Welcome back to the LL Study Guide podcast for another quick match day review. I’m glad you’re here. We’re going to walk through all six questions from this match, talk about the right answers, and, more importantly, lock in a few patterns and connections you can reuse next time you see something similar.

If you want the full write-up, with links, sources, and extra examples, you can always check the study notes on our website at llstudyguide.com. Think of this episode as your audio companion for busy moments, and the site as the deep dive for when you’re at a screen.

Let’s jump in with Question 1.

Question 1 was: “The appropriately named common wheat accounts for about 95% of global wheat production. In second place is what hard variety, milled to make semolina flour and the source for nearly all commercially produced pasta?”

The answer is: DURUM.

So here the key chain is: durum wheat, semolina, pasta. Common wheat is what most bread is made from. Durum is that harder, second-place species, and when you mill it, you get semolina, which becomes the base for most dried pasta you see in stores.

If you’ve ever really read the side of a pasta box, you’ve probably seen the phrase “durum wheat semolina” in the ingredients. That’s your trivia trigger. Durum literally comes from Latin for “hard,” and its hard kernels and high protein content make it perfect for holding its shape when dried and boiled.

A couple of things to connect here. First, think about other foods built on durum: couscous, some forms of bulgur, a lot of North African and Middle Eastern dishes. That same semolina shows up all over those cuisines. Second, remember the rough percentages: common wheat around 95 percent of production, durum a much smaller but still important slice.

If you want more detail on the different wheat species, pasta labeling examples, and some food-industry context, check the study notes on the website. There’s a nice breakdown of how agronomy sources describe the split between common wheat and durum.

All right, from pasta we move to interwar history.

Question 2: “What was the name used for the form of international trusteeship devised by the League of Nations to administer former German and Ottoman colonies after World War I? By the end of WWII, some territories had achieved independence, with notable exceptions including Namibia and Palestine.”

The answer is: MANDATE.

Here, “mandate” isn’t just a generic “order” or “instruction.” It’s a very specific legal term from the League of Nations system. After World War One, the League created this mandate system to handle former German and Ottoman territories. Allied powers governed these areas as “mandated territories” on the understanding that they were being prepared for eventual independence.

They divided mandates into three classes. Class A included places like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, which were considered closest to self-government. Class B covered much of Germany’s former African colonies, like Tanganyika and Ruanda-Urundi. Class C mandates, like South West Africa—today’s Namibia—and some Pacific islands, were administered almost like extensions of the mandatory power’s own territory.

Two of the most important examples named in the question are South West Africa, under South African control, and the British Mandate for Palestine. Both became flashpoints: Namibia didn’t become independent until 1990, and disputes over the British Mandate in Palestine still echo in modern politics.

For pattern-building, there are a few anchors you can use. One is the phrase “League of Nations mandate” itself, which appears in a lot of introductions to international law and to the history of the UN. Another is Middle East history: “British Mandate Palestine” is a phrase you’ll hear in books and documentaries about the origins of the Arab–Israeli conflict. And a third is decolonization in Africa: Namibia is often singled out as a late and contested case, tied directly back to its status as a former League mandate.

The study notes have more on the A, B, and C classes, and how the mandate system connects forward to the UN trusteeship system, so if you want to firm that up for future world history questions, take a look there.

From interwar diplomacy, we hop over to U.S. geography and baseball lore.

Question 3: “The name of the highest peak in suburban Atlanta is notable in its relation to the name of Major League Baseball’s controversial first Commissioner. What is that peak’s name?”

The answer is: KENNESAW MOUNTAIN.

So the trivia hook is the connection between Kennesaw Mountain, the actual place, and Kenesaw Mountain Landis, baseball’s first commissioner. Landis was named after the Civil War battle at Kennesaw Mountain, where his father was wounded. The difference is the spelling: the mountain has two n’s, “Kennesaw,” while his given name is usually spelled with one n, “Kenesaw.”

Geographically, Kennesaw Mountain is in Cobb County, between the cities of Marietta and Kennesaw, and it’s the highest point in the core Atlanta metro area at about eighteen hundred feet. Historically, it was the site of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in 1864, part of Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign, and today it’s preserved as Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

Another nice fact: the name “Kennesaw” comes from a Cherokee term meaning “cemetery” or “burial ground.” That’s one of those etymologies that might show up in a question about Native American place names.

To build connections here, think in three directions. First, baseball history: Kenesaw Mountain Landis shows up anytime the Black Sox scandal or early twentieth-century Major League Baseball governance is discussed. That unusual first name is almost always explained, and it’s your bridge back to the Georgia mountain. Second, Civil War history and battlefield tourism: people who read about or visit Atlanta Campaign sites will see Kennesaw Mountain come up repeatedly. Third, Atlanta-area geography and sports coverage often mention the park as a major hiking spot, reinforcing the local recognition of the name.

If you’d like more detail on the battle, Landis’s biography, or that Cherokee etymology, those are all laid out in the show notes on the website.

Now let’s switch over to literature.

Question 4: “‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’, ‘For Esmé—With Love and Squalor’, and ‘Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes’ are three tales that, along with six others, make up a 1953 J.D. Salinger collection published with what two-word name?”

The answer is: NINE STORIES.

In the U.S., Salinger’s 1953 collection is titled “Nine Stories,” very straightforwardly. It gathers nine of his short stories, many of which first ran in The New Yorker. The three the question lists—“A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” “For Esmé—With Love and Squalor,” and “Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes”—are among the most famous pieces in the book.

Outside the U.S., the same collection is often published under the title “For Esmé—With Love and Squalor, and Other Stories.” But in American classrooms, on reading lists, and on shelves, you’ll usually see it as “Nine Stories.”

“A Perfect Day for Bananafish” appeared in The New Yorker in 1948 and is often cited as one of Salinger’s greatest works. “For Esmé—With Love and Squalor” came out in 1950 and is a classic World War Two story about trauma and connection. “Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes” followed in 1951. Several of the stories tie into Salinger’s recurring Glass family characters, which also show up in “Franny and Zooey” and “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters.”

Here are a few patterns that can help. First, if you see “Bananafish” and “For Esmé” together, think “Nine Stories” without overcomplicating it. Second, American high school and college syllabi often list “Catcher in the Rye” and “Nine Stories” together as the two big Salinger volumes. And third, when you see references to the Glass family across different Salinger works, they often point back to this collection as a foundational book.

The study notes walk through the full table of contents, some publication dates, and even how this book influenced later short story writers. That’s worth a skim if you want to be more comfortable with mid-century American fiction clues.

All right, next up, we’ve got a music geography question.

Question 5: “What state produced musical acts including Devo, The O’Jays, Nine Inch Nails, and Guided By Voices, as well as (perhaps in a more readily apparent sense) the bubblegum band who released ‘Yummy Yummy Yummy’ and ‘Chewy Chewy’ in 1968, and the funk band that had hits in the 1970s with ‘Fire’ and ‘Love Rollercoaster’?”

The answer is: OHIO.

This one strings together a whole playlist of Ohio-connected acts across different genres and decades. Devo, the new wave band behind “Whip It,” formed in Akron. The O’Jays, an R and B group known for songs like “Love Train,” came out of Canton. Nine Inch Nails, Trent Reznor’s industrial rock project, was originally formed in Cleveland. Guided By Voices, a cult indie rock band, started in Dayton.

Then the question gives you two extra hints that basically shout the state: the bubblegum pop band Ohio Express, known for “Yummy Yummy Yummy” and “Chewy Chewy,” and the funk band Ohio Players, who had big 1970s hits with “Fire” and “Love Rollercoaster.” Both have “Ohio” right there in the band name, which is what the clue is nudging you toward with “more readily apparent sense.”

So if you didn’t know where Devo or Guided By Voices came from, locking onto Ohio Express or Ohio Players is the safety net.

There are at least three larger patterns you can keep in mind. First, Ohio has a surprisingly big footprint in American music. Cities like Cleveland, Akron, Dayton, and Canton show up repeatedly when you trace the origins of funk, R and B, new wave, and industrial rock. Second, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland, which makes “Ohio plus rock history” a very comfortable association. And third, those individual songs have long lives: “Yummy Yummy Yummy” pops up in films, TV, and ads, and “Love Rollercoaster” was famously covered by the Red Hot Chili Peppers for the movie “Beavis and Butt-Head Do America.” Those modern references can help the names stick.

If you want to see all the cities mapped out, plus more Ohio acts that often appear in music trivia, check the show notes for this question on the site.

Finally, let’s wrap up with a little bit of physics, some metalworking, and a movie time machine.

Question 6: “In physics, it’s the flow of a substance through a surface; in metallurgy, an additive that promotes the flow of molten metal and removes impurities; and in a certain film series, something or other to do with time travel, apparently. What four-letter word is this?”

The answer is: FLUX.

In physics, “flux” is all about flow through a surface. You’ll see it in electromagnetism, fluid dynamics, and heat transfer. You can talk about heat flux, mass flux, or electric flux, all of which are basically the rate at which something passes through a given area. It’s a formal way to capture “how much stuff is flowing through this imaginary window per unit time.”

In metallurgy, a flux is a chemical agent you add to molten metal—during smelting, soldering, brazing, or welding—to help clean and protect the metal. Flux can prevent oxidation, dissolve metal oxides that form on the surface, and help draw impurities away into slag. If you’ve ever used soldering flux in electronics, you’ve seen this idea in action: the flux cleans the surfaces and helps the molten solder flow and adhere better.

And then there’s the pop culture angle: the “flux capacitor” from the Back to the Future films. In those movies, the DeLorean’s time travel ability is said to come from the flux capacitor, which, as Doc Brown puts it, is “what makes time travel possible.” Once the car hits eighty-eight miles per hour and gets its 1.21 gigawatts of power, the flux capacitor does its fictional thing.

So the question is bundling three uses of the same word: rigorous physics, practical metalworking, and sci-fi technobabble.

For trivia purposes, here are some patterns to hang onto. First, any time you see “flow per unit area” or “rate of something through a surface” in a physics clue, “flux” should be high on your list. Second, in hands-on contexts—soldering, welding, glassmaking—anything described as a cleaning or flowing additive is probably a flux. And third, if Back to the Future is involved, you can practically expect the phrase “flux capacitor” to appear somewhere nearby.

There’s also a language angle: phrases like “in flux” in everyday English mean “in a state of change,” which traces back to the same Latin root for “flow.” The study notes go further into the math and physics definition if you want to refresh your memory on electric or heat flux.

That brings us to the end of this match day’s questions. Today we moved from durum wheat and your pantry, to League of Nations mandates, to Kennesaw Mountain and baseball history, then into Salinger’s Nine Stories, Ohio’s musical exports, and finally the multiple lives of the word “flux.”

If any of these felt shaky, or if you want more detail, examples, and links to sources, remember you can find full study notes and resources at llstudyguide.com. The notes are organized by match day and by topic, so it’s easy to drill into, say, League of Nations mandates or Ohio music history.

Thanks for listening, and for making time to sharpen your trivia knowledge on the go. Come back next match day and we’ll walk through another set together. Until then, good luck in your next quiz, and I’ll talk to you soon.