The 2011 business news quiz

By Scott J. Wilson, Los Angeles Times

Dec. 31, 2011 12 AM PT

1. Which of these hit an all-time high in 2011?

A. The price of oil

B. Retail sales on the day after Thanksgiving

C. Goldman Sachs’ stock price

D. The U.S. unemployment rate

2. What was French President Nicolas Sarkozy referring to when he said, “What has happened must never happen again”?

A. The arrest of International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn

B. Moammar Kadafi-style leadership in Libya

C. The European debt crisis

D. A Kardashian wedding

3. According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, the late Apple co-founder accused a rival of copying a product, saying, “I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank to right this wrong.” What did he believe was unfairly developed?

A. Google’s Android operating system

B. Amazon’s Kindle

C. RIM’s BlackBerry Torch

D. Sony’s PlayStation

4. Responding to a state proposal to force Amazon.com to collect sales taxes on purchases, the online e-commerce giant threatened to:

A. Close its warehouses in California, laying off workers

B. Put a surcharge on purchases by California consumers

C. Mount a campaign to put a referendum on the state ballot

D. Eliminate its free shipping benefit on purchases going to addresses in the state

5. The investigation into phone hacking by reporters focused on which News Corp. newspaper?

A. Times of London

B. News of the World

C. Wall Street Journal

D. New York Post

6. Which of these is NOT an online poker site accused of fraud and money laundering by the U.S. government in April?

A. Absolute Poker

B. Full Tilt Poker

C. PokerStars

D. Totally Poker

7. Bank of America planned to charge a $5 monthly fee for debit card usage, a strategy it later dropped, because it was losing revenue from what change?

A. Laws that limited the fees it could charge for services and overdrafts.

B. Falling interest rates that cut the revenue it could earn from real estate loans.

C. Customers draining savings accounts to meet expenses during the economic downturn.

D. A severe drop in home loans because of the subprime crisis.

8. What 2011 film earned the most at the U.S. box office?

A. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2”

B. “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”

C. “The Hangover Part II”

D. “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1”

9. Which of these did not file for bankruptcy in 2011?

A. Los Angeles Dodgers

B. American Airlines

C. Blockbuster

D. Saab

10. In the largest U.S. strike since 2007, 45,000 workers at what company walked off the job for two weeks in August?

A. Wal-Mart

B. Verizon

C. Microsoft

D. Chevron

11. The last big-name aerospace company based in Southern California moved its headquarters to Virginia in 2011. It was:

A. Lockheed

B. Boeing

C. Northrop Grumman

D. Hughes Aircraft

12. The Energy Department’s investment in what solar energy start-up turned into an embarrassment for the Obama administration when the company closed in August?

A. Solyndra

B. Sky Electric

C. Solar City

D. Solar Plexus

13. Which of these companies did NOT go public in 2011?

A. Groupon

B. Zillow

C. LinkedIn

D. Facebook

14. Los Angeles police blamed a surge in jewelry store robberies, muggings and burglaries in 2011 on the rising price of what?

A. Diamonds

B. Gold