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Last Updated: Wednesday, 21 April, 2004, 09:18 GMT 10:18 UK

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EU enlargement quiz: Poland

This is the sixth in a series of 10 quizzes on the 10 countries joining the EU on 1 May.

Poland is the largest country joining in this current wave of enlargement. Birthplace of the current Pope, it is a strongly Catholic country with a rich cultural heritage and a tumultuous history.

How much do you know about the country? Test yourself with this interactive quiz.

Question 1

Who or what is Kubus Puchatek?


	A: Winnie-the-Pooh. The fictional bear is so popular in Poland a Warsaw street is named after him


	B: The Rubik Cube. Warsaw University has a course devoted to the mathematics of the gadget


	C: The Polish equivalent of Robin Hood. Some versions of the folktale even have the two meeting in a forest

Question 2

The Polish trade union which helped bring down communism is widely seen as one of the most important social movements of the 20th century. What was it called?


	A: Solidarity


	B: Renaissance


	C: Positivism

Question 3

The literal translation of this Polish proverb is: What little John hasn't learnt, Old John won't know. But what is the English equivalent?


	A: Like father, like son


	B: You can't teach an old dog new tricks


	C: Every dog has his day


	D: Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs

Question 4

Which of these key theories was developed by a Pole?


	A: That the same force that makes an object fall to the earth keeps planets in their orbits


	B: That the earth and the other planets revolve around the sun


	C: That the universe originated in an explosion of a mass of material

Question 5

Flicking a few fingers against the neck in Poland means what?


	A: It is a rather aggressive way of asking someone to go away


	B: It is a way of asking someone to have a vodka with you


	C: It is a way of inviting someone across the room to speak to you

Question 6

Which of these countries has NOT claimed control of Polish lands in the past?


	A: Austria


	B: Russia


	C: The Netherlands


	D: Germany


	E: Sweden

Question 7

"The copper rang, the vapour burst forth, the bigos evaporated like camphor". Poland's most famous poet Adam Mickiewicz was writing about what?


	A: Poland's national dish


	B: A plague of beetles in 1837


	C: The national currency

Question 8

Who were Henryk Zygalski, Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki, and what did they do?


	A: Mobile phone engineers who accidentally developed SMS text messaging in the 1990s


	B: English teachers who invented the game Scrabble as an educational aid in the 1970s


	C: Mathematicians who helped crack the Nazis' enigma code in the 1930s

Question 9

For the performance of whose plays was a theatre built in Gdansk?


	A: Arthur Miller


	B: Anton Chekhov


	C: William Shakespeare

Question 10

What method of communication was developed in Poland?


	A: Pigeon post - it was first used during the Thirty Years War in 17th century Poland


	B: Esperanto - it was constructed by a Pole sick of inter-ethnic hostilities in his neighbourhood


	C: Pinching - the use of the gesture to express annoyance is first recorded in a ninth century Polish manuscript

Press the button and see how you have done

Low score? Visit Inside Europe to brush up your knowledge. Or if you're in the UK, challenge your knowledge gap at the Meet the Neighbours festival at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on 24 April. Go to www.europe.gov.uk for details.

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