Really? You think the voltage on a street car and the wood that kerosene barrels is made of is common knowledge? I would say that I knew maybe 1/3rd of the questions in that list.
Back when I was at school, we had all the subjects as mandatory, chemistry, physics, biology, history - there was no choice like you get today. So yes, I happen to know the weight of the air,or the lightest/heaviest types of wood. And if you like researching things(in my case - spending hours on wikipedia) questions like the one about optical lenses are easy.
And I am pretty sure that's what Edison was looking for - people who are curious about stuff and research it themselves. Common knowledge in my opinion,because in an ideal world I would like everyone to be that curious about the world that surrounds them.
Uh-huh. You should go on Jeopardy, you would make Ken Jennings look like a clown.
And no, I am not interested in Jeopardy.
"I actually used to work in a wolframium mine"
Credibility shot.
Apropos useless facts, did you know shellac was made from insects?
For example: I remembered reading about the topics relating to some of the test questions, but was unable to answer most of them.
Remembering a bunch of relatively useless facts does not make you a capable professional.
Given some of them are disputed (heaviest type of wood is one of about three depending on who you ask and when (some are nearly extinct and like all natural things, vary considerably)), some require knowing knowledge from Edison's timeframe (what planet was recently found to be enormous size - certainly wasn't Jupiter - possibly Neptune) and a couple are opinions (what country and city produce the finest china), I feel like there is a lot of leeway in the answers, but knowing all but three seems unlikely.
Kerosene was the most important fuel used up until the 1920s, so I'd imagine most people would have seen kerosene barrels personally. A few would have derived the type of wood via curiosity.