Thanks for sharing the quiz; It was enjoyable, but a bit frustrating. It is never my intention to come off as snotty, condescending, or all knowing in any of my posts, but here go's......
As rootabaga aptly pointed out, #7 is a perfect example of the kind of "trick" question one will encounter; My sense, however of the entire quiz was that it simply wasn't very well written, and therefore difficult to know how to respond in some instances. (I missed #7, even after your warning, and careful consideration.)
I found myself wondering if it was produced by someone not really all that familiar with IC engine design and technology, or perhaps even if the entire quiz were translated from another language. In its native language, the questions might make perfect sense, but were slightly twisted in the translated version? I recall fondly when owner's manuals for various foreign cars were often rather literal translations from their countries of origin; In particular, the early Honda motorcycle manuals, when referring to final drive chain tension and maintenance...."beware the evil dread mud grime."
My other impression was that all of the questions were roughly of the same style and difficulty level, targeted to the same audience; One stood out as an exception: It was either #2 or #3, asking when N. Otto developed the 4-cycle concept. That struck me as difficult material even for people knowledgeable of old cars, and was also far less a technical question, more a history question. One of the possible responses was 1776, which is far from the true answer, and seems like an obvious George Washington joke, but consider: Within my automotive library, there is a book written and published by the people at Automobile Quarterly, ( no dummies), the title being
The History of the Automobile, from 1776 to present. I can't find my copy, and may be paraphrasing a bit, however the time period covered definitely begins at 1776. My main point being that people had been working on the problem for many, many years already, and 1776 was one of the noteworthy years in the chronology, not a completely unreasonable choice for question #2.
When that question showed up so early in the quiz, I thought to myself, "Whoah, buckle up, this may be a real ride, no laughing matter". I did enjoy the quiz, but was hoping it would start easy, and progress to two cycle engines, through rotary / Wankel engines, to the 1.5 litre BRM V-16, (for instance), on to fine points of valve actuation and control, and finish with things like, "How does laterally offsetting the center line of the cylinder bore with respect to the crankshaft center line alter the effective stroke of the piston, and what effects does that change have on connecting rod angularity?"
I know, arcane and condescending, but I truly enjoy the discussion with anyone and everyone, at any level of familiarity. I am pleased some of them take place within an Android Forum, and give thanks to rootabaga for getting it started on this thread.
