In English billiards, a cannon, in which the cue ball strikes both the other balls, is worth how many points?

The correct answer is B, 15. A frame of snooker begins with fifteen red balls arranged in a triangle behind the pink, each worth one point. Along with these there are six colours, namely yellow, green, brown, blue, pink and black, and one white cue ball, so twenty-two balls stand on the table at the start. The player must pot a red and then a colour alternately until the reds are exhausted. Option A is wrong because twelve is not the number used in any standard form of the game. Option C is wrong because eighteen reds appear in no recognised version of snooker. Option D is wrong because twenty-one is the number of balls other than the cue ball, that is fifteen reds and six colours, and it is the usual trap set in this question.

The correct answer is C, 7. The six colours of snooker are valued in a fixed order, yellow two, green three, brown four, blue five, pink six and black seven, so the black is the highest valued ball on the table and is the one a player takes after each red while building a big break. Option A is wrong because five points belong to the blue, which sits at the centre of the table. Option B is wrong because six points belong to the pink, which stands just in front of the triangle of reds. Option D is wrong because no ball in snooker is worth eight points; the highest value is the seven of the black, and the maximum break of 147 is built on repeated use of that ball.

The correct answer is B, 147. The figure is arrived at by potting all fifteen reds for fifteen points, taking the black worth seven after each red for one hundred and five points, and then clearing the six colours in order of value for twenty-seven points, giving a total of one hundred and forty-seven. A player who does this in one visit is said to have made a maximum break. Option A is wrong because one hundred and twenty is only the score from the reds and the blacks, before the colours are cleared. Option C is wrong because one hundred and fifty-five is possible only in the rare situation of a free ball after a foul, not in a standard frame. Option D is wrong because one hundred and eighty is the maximum score of three darts in darts, not of snooker.

The correct answer is A, Jabalpur. Officers of the British garrison at Jabalpur, in present-day Madhya Pradesh, added coloured balls to the older game of black pool in 1875, and Sir Neville Francis Fitzgerald Chamberlain of the Devonshire Regiment gave the new game the name snooker, which was slang at the Woolwich military academy for a first-year cadet. The game then travelled to Britain and became a professional sport there. Option B is wrong because Shimla, though a British summer capital with many clubs, is not credited with the invention. Option C is wrong because Pune is the city of Wilson Jones, the first Indian world champion, and not the birthplace of the game. Option D is wrong because Kolkata hosted early billiards championships but is not where snooker was devised.

The correct answer is C, Wilson Jones. Wilson Jones of Pune won the World Amateur Billiards Championship in 1958 and so became the first Indian to win a world title in any sport, a landmark often asked in general awareness papers. He won the championship a second time in 1964 and was honoured by the government for the achievement. Option A is wrong because Michael Ferreira came later and won the world amateur billiards title three times, in 1977, 1981 and 1983. Option B is wrong because Geet Sethi won the amateur title in 1985 and the professional title from 1992 onward. Option D is wrong because Pankaj Advani belongs to a much later generation and is known for his world titles in both billiards and snooker, including the grand double of 2005.