| Hello, Point-dexters! I’m your Quizmaster, Aimee Lucido, and this is Bonus Points: the newsletter that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at last week’s Pointed news quiz. Want to be the first to know when a new quiz goes live? Sign up for email alerts here. Want to see this newsletter in your inbox every week? Sign up for the newsletter here. Last week’s quiz was a bit easier than the one before, with the average rising 10 points.  Bloomberg More questions skewed easy, too, with six of them having get-rates of at least 80%, but there were two questions with pretty low get-rates. One was the question about DC’s home rule, which 40% of you got right. Only 35% of you got the other question, making it the … Hardest Question of the Week | “Again with the African geography tho” was an actual text message I received from a friend who speaks for 65% of you. The question in question: An independent review found that the partial collapse of a waste dam in February released 30 times more toxic sludge than previously reported. The dam was located at a Chinese state-owned copper mine in which African country? The mine was near the country’s northern border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. A) Rwanda
B) Uganda
C) Zambia
D) Zimbabwe Okay, yes, I do favor secondary clues about African geography. But that’s because African geography is important! First, you can rule out Zimbabwe because it doesn’t border the DRC. Rwanda and Uganda both border the DRC, but they’re on the country’s eastern border, which means the DRC lies to their west. That leaves Zambia, which is the correct answer. If you missed this one, it’s worth giving this story about the toxic spill at a copper mine in Zambia a read. This week’s deleted scene had a fun alternative clue, but the news item itself was something most solvers probably wouldn’t have heard of. Do you know the answer? India’s first AI unicorn filed for a $560 million initial public offering in Mumbai. What is its name? It references a category of geometric shape associated with Benoit Mandelbrot.
A) Hyperbola Analytics
B) Tesseract Analytics
C) Fractal Analytics
D) Helix Analytics This question involves some knowledge of math, one of my all-time favorite trivia categories. Solvers can rule out Helix as an answer here because the spiral helix shape, found within the double helix shape of DNA, is more associated with chemist Rosalind Franklin than anyone else. A tesseract, also known as a hypercube or four-dimensional cube, is a shape that I personally associate most with the Wrinkle in Time book series by Madeleine L’Engle. A hyperbola is a conic section first explored in the 300s BCE by an ancient Greek mathematician known as Menaechmus. But Benoit Mandelbrot worked with fractals, and even has a fractal named for him. So the answer is Fractal Analytics, and Fractal Analytics is a unicorn AI company! Trivia From Outside the News Cycle | I went to trivia night at a bar near me last week! I don’t get to do this nearly as much as my little fact-loving heart would like, but when I do get to go, it’s a ton of fun. We did pretty well, but the category we struggled with most was fictional brands. We only figured out five of 10, but we figured out one I was particularly proud of: In which television series can you find the fictional brand Alamo Beer? This may seem like a YEKIOYD question (you either know it or you don’t) but we managed to suss out the answer. Can you? Oh, and here’s the answer to last week’s Trivia From Outside the News Cycle question. The question was: “Which eponymous toy was invented by a Hungarian sculptor in 1974?” The answer is…Rubik’s Cube! If you haven’t seen one (and believe me, you have) a Rubik’s Cube is a multicolored 3x3 puzzle block toy invented by Ernő Rubik in the 1970s. But did you know that they come in all different shapes and sizes? They make 4x4s, 5x5x and 10x10s. They come in the shape of pyramids, hearts, dodecahedra, and there are even tutorials for how to solve a 1x1 Rubik’s Cube. [eyeroll] Congrats to everyone who figured out that answer! If you want a potential shoutout next week, send your answers to pointed@bloomberg.net. We’re already hard at work drafting this week’s Pointed, so if you’re looking for a hint to help you join that elusive 190 club, you’ve come to the right place. Your hint is to take a look at private clubs that recently got a bit more private. Have thoughts on the quiz? Reach out! pointed@bloomberg.net. Aimee Lucido Aka The Quizmaster | 
