Here is a Practice Test for those who want a sample in advance of the real thing.
Click here for the answers. They're in a Spoiler Box in post #3.Good luck.
1. RHYME TIME Felony committed by a citrus fruit found in the Florida Keys.
2. SPORTS BOOKS This Michael Lewis book made into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill is subtitled “The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.”
3. RIP 2011 This TV actor, best known for his roles on MASH and Dragnet, passed away on December 7.
4. BASIC PHYSICS This simple machine consists of an inclined plane rotated helically around an axis.
5. HISTORIC WOMEN This Vice-Presidential runner-up has received more electoral votes than any other woman.
6. MOVIES Natalie Portman won a Best Actress Oscar for portraying a dancer in this Tchaikovsky ballet.
7. OPERA In the preface to the published libretto of The Flying Dutchman, this composer said, “I shall never write an opera more.”
8. BEFORE & AFTER Flag flown in British Commonwealth countries whose nursery rhyme wife “could eat no lean.”
9. SPORTS TEAMS IN OTHER WORDS The head servant of a household, or the runner-up in the 2010 and 2011 men's NCAA basketball tournaments.
10. STATE CAPITALS Now the largest state capital by population, this was the last city in the 48 contiguous United States to become a state capital.
11. MUSIC “Planetary” artist whose album “Doo-Wops and Hooligans” includes the Grammy-nominated song “Grenade.”
12. NOVELS This Jane Austen novel is a revision of an earlier work called “First Impressions.”
13. HYPHENATED COMPOSERS This Russian's symphonic suite Sheherezade is based on “One Thousand and One Nights.”
14. FOOD This small cruciferous cabbage named for a European capital originated in the cooler climate of northern Europe.
15. THE SUPREME COURT The first case in which this former President wrote the majority opinion dealt with rights of U. S. citizens in overseas territories.
16. REFERENCE BOOKS The name of this type of reference work means “treasury,” not “synonym lizard.”
17. COLORFUL SUPERHEROES Color common to the superhero identities of Oliver Queen, Britt Reid, and Alan Scott.
18. SHAKESPEARE This Italian city was home in one play to Valentine and Petruchio, and in another play to Mercutio and Tybalt.
19. WORLD CAPITALS This European city is the only national capital in the world to completely surround a foreign country.
20. THE LABORS OF HERCULES While this titan fetched the golden apples of the Hesperides, Hercules held the sky on his shoulders.
21. WORLD WAR II “Operation Double Cross” was an attempt to convince the Axis that the Allies would invade Greece instead of this country.
22. POTENT POTABLES Grey Goose and Belvedere are wheat-based brands of this potent potable commonly associated with Russia.
23. “L”-EMENTS Element number three in the periodic table, it got its name from the Greek word for “stone.”
24. WORLD LITERATURE In 2011, “One Piece” became the best-selling series in the history of this 5-letter Japanese literary style.
25. COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES Of the nine “Colonial colleges” founded before the American Revolution, one of the two that is not part of the Ivy League.
26. CARIBBEAN HISTORY This country, which occupies half of a Caribbean island, was the second Western Hemisphere country to become independent.
27. CHILDREN'S BOOKS In books by Laura Joffe Numeroff, this title animal is taken to the movies, taken to school, and most famously given a cookie.
28. THE INTERNET This online reference site's name combines a Hawaiian word meaning “fast” with a Greek word meaning “to walk.”
29. CROSSWORD CLUES “I” Unimaginable! (It means what you think it means). (13)
30. U. S. CITIES This city is home to both a space center named for Lyndon Johnson and an airport named for George H. W. Bush.
31. CURRENT EVENTS The 2010 suicide of Mohamed Bouazizi, a street vendor in this North African capital, sparked demonstrations that would come to be called the “Arab Spring.”
32. STATE SONGS This song, traditionally sung before the Preakness Stakes, includes the line “Avenge the patriotic gore that flecked the streets of Baltimore.”
33. LANGUAGES Also called azbuka, this writing system named for a ninth century Eastern Orthodox saint became the third official script of the European Union in 2007.
34. SCULPTOR PAINTERS This impressionist painter's most famous sculpture depicts a bronze, fourteen-year-old ballerina.
35. ART ON STAGE “Red,” the 2010 Tony winner for Best Play, tells a story about this Russian-American abstract expressionist.
36. NEONATOLOGY Premature infants are sometimes placed under a bright blue light to treat this yellowing of the skin caused by excess bilirubin.
37. THE 21ST CENTURY BC The Middle Kingdom period of this ancient empire was inaugurated when Mentuhotep II reunited the country.
38. COLORFUL PHRASES This type of telephone directory in which businesses are listed by category is named for the color of paper on which it is typically printed.
39. GOING UP Alphanumeric name eventually given to the mountain originally named for Henry Godwin-Austen, an early explorer of the Karakoram range.
40. UNLIKELY AUTHORS His best-known work is an eight-volume history which begins “Gaul, taken as a whole, is divided into three parts.”
41. I KNOW THE KINGS OF SWEDEN This king, after whom a Minnesota college is named, died in battle during the Thirty Years War.
42. ART “T”ERMS Seven-letter word for a glutenous binder such as egg yolk that mixes with pigment to make paint.
43. THE OLD TESTAMENT The wife of this Old Testament character told him he should “Curse God and die.”
44. THE SOVIET SPACE PROGRAM Invisible from the Earth's surface, this region of a celestial body was first photographed by a Soviet space probe in October, 1959.
45. FLOWERY POEMS Type of flowers that “blow beneath the crosses row on row” in a poem by John McCrae.
46. MUSICAL VOCABULARY Meaning “self-titled,” this was the title of R. E. M.'s first greatest hits album.
47. RIVER MANIA The Mania River flows from the central mountains of this island, the largest in the Indian Ocean.
48. RECENT FICTION Stephen King's 2011 novel 11/22/63 is about a man who travels back in time to try to prevent the death of this man.
49. NUMERICAL WORD ORIGINS This word meaning “uncountable” is a transliteration of the Greek word for ten thousand.
50. FOSSIL FUELS This controversial method of extracting oil or natural gas from a rock formation involves injecting a fluid into the rock until it breaks.
