Podcast Script

Welcome back to the LL Study Guide podcast, your quick post-match companion for LearnedLeague. I’m here to walk you through today’s six questions, fill in some background, and give you a few patterns to watch for next time similar topics pop up.

If you want to go deeper on anything we talk about, the full study notes with links and extra resources are waiting for you at llstudyguide.com. Think of this audio as your highlight reel, and the website as your full playbook.

Let’s jump into Question 1.

Question 1 read: “In Buddhism and Hinduism, what term refers to a sacred word, phrase, or syllable believed to focus the mind and foster the development of spiritual power when repeated in meditation?”

The answer is: MANTRA.

A mantra is basically a sacred sound you repeat over and over in meditation. It can be a single syllable, a word, or a short phrase. One of the most famous is “Om,” which you’ll hear in both Hindu and Buddhist traditions. The idea is that repeating the mantra helps focus your mind and, in many traditions, is believed to hold spiritual or mystical power.

You’ll sometimes hear the Sanskrit term “japa,” which is the practice of repeating a mantra as a form of meditation or prayer. And in everyday English, we’ve borrowed “mantra” to mean any guiding phrase we repeat to ourselves, like “trust the process” or “defense wins championships.” That metaphorical use comes straight out of this religious context.

In LearnedLeague terms, the key signals here were the pairing of “Buddhism and Hinduism,” plus that phrase “sacred word, phrase, or syllable” and the emphasis on repetition in meditation. All of that should push you toward Indian religious vocabulary, and “mantra” is the generic term that fits best.

If you want to explore more, check the study notes on our website for:

  • The difference between “mantra” as a category and specific examples, like Om
  • The practice of japa in various Indian religions
  • How “mantra” has shifted into modern self-help and pop culture language

All right, from quiet meditation, we head to a very different kind of religious performance.

Question 2 asked: “The Bavarian village of Oberammergau has famously, since 1634, hosted a production of what type of alliteratively named theatrical performance, to honor a vow made during an outbreak of the plague?”

The answer is: PASSION PLAY.

A passion play is a dramatic reenactment of the Passion of Jesus Christ—his trial, suffering, and crucifixion. Oberammergau, a village in Bavaria, made a vow during a 17th-century plague outbreak: if God spared them from further deaths, they would perform the Passion of Christ regularly. According to the tradition, the deaths stopped, and they staged their first Passion Play in 1634, literally over the graves of the plague victims.

Since then, Oberammergau has become world-famous for this huge, community-wide production, typically put on every ten years. Locals grow their hair and beards out for roles, the staging is elaborate, and people travel from all over the world to see it.

For quiz purposes, the phrase “alliteratively named” is key, paired with a Christian context. You might briefly consider “miracle play” or “mystery play,” but Oberammergau is strongly associated with a Passion Play. And knowing that “Passion” in this setting means the suffering and death of Jesus helps connect the dots.

Some adjacent topics worth filing away, and you can find more on these in the study notes:

  • Medieval and early modern Christian drama: miracle plays, mystery plays, and passion plays
  • How plague-era vows like the Oberammergau promise pop up in European religious history
  • The modern tourism and cultural economy around big religious performances

Now, let’s shift from theater to color theory.

Question 3 was: “In both the additive RGB color model and the subtractive CMY color model, what is the complementary color to red (meaning that it creates the greatest contrast, and cancels red out when combined)?”

The answer is: CYAN.

In the RGB color model—the world of light, like screens and projectors—the primary colors are red, green, and blue. When you mix two primaries, you get a secondary color. Green plus blue makes cyan. Red plus green makes yellow. Blue plus red makes magenta.

Each primary has a complementary color made from the other two primaries. So red’s complement is cyan, which is that blue-green mix. When you shine red and cyan light together at full intensity, you’re basically adding red, green, and blue altogether, which gives you white.

On the flip side, in printing and pigments, you use a subtractive model like CMY or CMYK. Cyan, magenta, and yellow are the standard inks. Here, cyan is “white minus red.” So in both systems—additive light and subtractive ink—cyan is positioned opposite red. That’s why red and cyan together give maximum contrast and why they cancel each other out in those models.

If you remember old-school red and cyan 3D glasses, that’s the same complementary relationship at work. And if you stare at a bright red image and then look at a white wall, the afterimage your vision produces tends to look cyan—that’s your eyes’ opponent color system doing its thing.

To build out this area, you might want to check the show notes for:

  • The full set of RGB primaries and secondary colors, and how each pair complements
  • CMYK printing basics and how “white minus red” leads you to cyan
  • Other common complementary pairs like blue–yellow and green–magenta

Okay, let’s jump from color to film and a classic director–actor partnership.

Question 4 said: “Denzel Washington has starred in five films directed by Spike Lee, with Highest 2 Lowest the most recent and Malcolm X the most notable. Name any one of the other three.”

The valid answers here are: MO’ BETTER BLUES, HE GOT GAME, or INSIDE MAN.

Spike Lee and Denzel Washington have one of those long-running collaborations that trivia writers love. The five films together are: Mo’ Better Blues from 1990, Malcolm X from 1992, He Got Game from 1998, Inside Man from 2006, and Highest 2 Lowest in 2025.

Mo’ Better Blues is a drama centered on a jazz trumpeter named Bleek Gilliam, played by Denzel, and it’s set in the New York jazz scene. He Got Game is a sports drama where Denzel plays Jake Shuttlesworth, a father in prison who’s temporarily released to convince his basketball-star son to sign with a particular college. Inside Man is a bank heist thriller where Denzel is an NYPD hostage negotiator dealing with a very clever robber.

For recall, it can help to tag each title with a simple hook: jazz for Mo’ Better Blues, basketball for He Got Game, and bank heist for Inside Man. When the question already mentions Malcolm X and Highest 2 Lowest, it’s alerting you that we’re talking about their full set of five collaborations, and it only wants one of the remaining three.

Patterns like this come up a lot: director–actor pairs such as Scorsese and De Niro, Scorsese and DiCaprio, or Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. Having a mental list of famous pairs and at least a couple of titles for each can really pay off.

In the study notes on our website, you’ll find:

  • A quick rundown of all five Spike Lee–Denzel films with years and one-line plot hooks
  • Other notable director–actor teams that LearnedLeague likes to test
  • Tips for anchoring film titles to simple themes or images so they stick better

From modern cinema, we swing over to scandalous French literature.

Question 5 asked: “Notorious nobleman and writer Donatien Alphonse François, whose body of work includes a depraved story he himself described as ‘the most impure tale that has ever been told since our world began’, is best known as whom?”

The answer is: MARQUIS DE SADE.

Donatien Alphonse François was an 18th-century French nobleman whose title was Marquis de Sade. He wrote extreme, often violent erotic works that pushed every boundary of his time. His most infamous piece is The 120 Days of Sodom, which he described as “the most impure tale that has ever been told since our world began.” He wrote that manuscript on a long scroll while imprisoned in the Bastille.

Another major work is Justine, which follows a virtuous woman suffering one horrible misfortune after another. Many of his writings were banned or censored for a long time, and his life was marked by repeated imprisonments and confinement.

His name gives us the word “sadism,” the idea of deriving pleasure from inflicting pain. That link between name and concept is a big clue. When you see “notorious nobleman” plus heavy emphasis on depravity, and especially a long French name like “Donatien Alphonse François,” it’s pointing straight at the Marquis de Sade.

Connecting language to authors is a useful trivia tactic. Just like “sadism” points to Sade, you have “Masochism” pointing to Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, “Kafkaesque” pointing to Franz Kafka, and “Orwellian” pointing to George Orwell.

If you’d like to go deeper, the study notes cover:

  • A short bio of de Sade, including his imprisonments and how his works survived
  • The story of the 120 Days of Sodom manuscript scroll and its modern status in France
  • Other eponymous literary and psychological terms that come up in quizzes

And now, from dark literature to chemistry and medicine.

Question 6 read: “The drug with IUPAC name 2-(diethylamino)ethyl 4-aminobenzoate was first synthesized in 1905 by Alfred Einhorn, who gave this new anesthetic what now ubiquitous trade name?”

The answer is: NOVOCAIN, or NOVOCAINE.

Chemically, that mouthful of an IUPAC name is procaine, an early local anesthetic. German chemist Alfred Einhorn synthesized it in 1905 and marketed it under the trade name Novocain, spelled with an “a-i” in English as Novocaine.

Before this, doctors actually used cocaine as a local anesthetic, especially in fields like ophthalmology and dentistry. Procaine was much safer and less addictive, so Novocain quickly became the standard. Over time, its brand name became generic in everyday speech. Even now, when you go to the dentist and get “a shot of novocaine,” you’re probably not getting actual procaine—modern dentistry more often uses newer agents like lidocaine—but the old name stuck.

From a quiz perspective, there are a few hooks here. First, that “-caine” ending is a classic marker for local anesthetics: cocaine, procaine, lidocaine, bupivacaine, and so on. Second, the question tells you it’s an anesthetic and hints at how famous the trade name is. Given the early 1900s time frame and the ubiquity, Novocain is the standout.

If chemistry is your thing, the “4-aminobenzoate” part of the name tells you this is related to para-aminobenzoic acid, or PABA, a scaffold used in several early anesthetics. But you didn’t need that depth to get the answer; recognizing Einhorn plus anesthetic history was enough.

On the website, check the study notes for:

  • A quick timeline from cocaine to Novocain to modern anesthetics
  • The family of “-caine” drugs and which ones show up most often in trivia
  • How brand names like Novocain become generic terms in everyday language

That brings us to the end of this match day’s questions.

Today’s set covered a lot of ground: Indian religious practice and mantras, a centuries-old Passion Play in a Bavarian village, color theory and complementary pairs, director–actor collaborations in film, notorious French literature that gave us the word “sadism,” and the chemistry and branding of local anesthetics like Novocain.

The common thread is pattern recognition. Religious vocabulary like “mantra” and “Passion,” color opposites like red and cyan, recurring film partnerships like Spike Lee and Denzel Washington, eponymous words like “sadism,” and the “-caine” ending for anesthetics—all of these are patterns you can lean on even when you don’t remember every detail.

If any of these topics felt shaky, or if you just want to turn a guess into a sure thing for next time, head over to llstudyguide.com. The study notes for this match day have concise summaries, extra examples, and pointers to solid reference articles, all laid out to make future questions a little easier.

Thanks for listening to the LL Study Guide podcast. Keep playing, keep learning, and I’ll be back with you for the next match day to break down another set of questions. Until then, happy studying.