University Challenge

[LHC]

I regard 15 as humiliatingly low and I am on the point of writing to the producers re the lack of literature and classical music questions . It is nothing to brag about - I just have a retentive memory and spent my youth reading the Guinness book of records and the Book of Lists and have spent virtually the entire lockdown reading Unfortunately under competition the pressure gets to me . My only pub quiz triumph was when Mike the Irish Poly lecturer went on holiday after beating me week after week. I got to a tie break with another regular . When the question started “ What opera by Wagner ....”” I knew the gods were smiling .

In 2002 I was a member of a team at a pub quiz held at Imperial College. The team I was on came second, losing out by only a couple of points to the team that came first. We thought that they had looked familiar, and when chatting to the winning team afterwards we discovered that three of them had been members of the Imperial College team that had won University Challenge the year before. We were inordinately proud of coming so close to them, although I must admit the questions were definitely pub quiz level, rather than University Challenge level.

Like others I thought the questions this week were significantly tougher than in the previous rounds, but they have always been more difficult in the semi-finals and final, so this was not unexpected. I did get a few right, probably around 8 or 9, but the questions on science and geography were completely beyond me.

[Ein Heldenleben]

In 2002 I was a member of a team at a pub quiz held at Imperial College. The team I was on came second, losing out by only a couple of points to the team that came first. We thought that they had looked familiar, and when chatting to the winning team afterwards we discovered that three of them had been members of the Imperial College team that had won University Challenge the year before. We were inordinately proud of coming so close to them, although I must admit the questions were definitely pub quiz level, rather than University Challenge level.

Like others I thought the questions this week were significantly tougher than in the previous rounds, but they have always been more difficult in the semi-finals and final, so this was not unexpected. I did get a few right, probably around 8 or 9, but the questions on science and geography were completely beyond me.

One thing to bear in mind when looking at the show is that they edit out the starter questions they can’t answer ( quite a few apparently ) and they can spend a lot of time conferring - again edited down...Also is it just me but are the panellists (unlike policemen) getting older ?

[LHC]

One thing to bear in mind when looking at the show is that they edit out the starter questions they can’t answer ( quite a few apparently ) and they can spend a lot of time conferring - again edited down...Also is it just me but are the panellists (unlike policemen) getting older ?

Yes, I think all the teams now include more Masters and PhD students, whereas the competition used to be mainly the preserve of undergraduates. Mind you none of them can match the OU team from 1997. One of their contestants was 73 years old, and they got as far as the final!

[Nick Armstrong]

One thing to bear in mind when looking at the show is that they edit out the starter questions they can’t answer ( quite a few apparently )...

I did not know that... (they leave a few in - especially this week! - for the purposes of verisimilitude...)

[gurnemanz]

One thing to bear in mind when looking at the show is that they edit out the starter questions they can’t answer ( quite a few apparently ) and they can spend a lot of time conferring - again edited down...Also is it just me but are the panellists (unlike policemen) getting older ?

Starters and bonus questions are linked so it is sometimes said that bonuses will be deferrred to the next correctly answered starter. I've not really thought this through but might this not get complicated with quite a few orphaned bonuses that don't get used at all. Maybe saved for another quiz.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I did not know that... (they leave a few in - especially this week! - for the purposes of verisimilitude...)

It’s what a contestant reported in a Guardian piece . There are also disputes over the correct answer . Don’t know about you but I wouldn’t want to pick an argument with Paxo...

[Ein Heldenleben]

Starters and bonus questions are linked so it is sometimes said that bonuses will be deferrred to the next correctly answered starter. I've not really thought this through but might this not get complicated with quite a few orphaned bonuses that don't get used at all. Maybe saved for another quiz.

One thing I noticed this week was a literature starter question that I managed to get ( or not get ) was then followed up with a series of apparently undeferred bonuses on a completely different , usually impenetrable , science subject. That is a very worrying new departure . I am still smarting at answering Shelley to the Hyperion author question . I’ve read the poem , I think I once wrote an essay on it and I couldn’t remember Keats ....

[cloughie]

One thing to bear in mind when looking at the show is that they edit out the starter questions they can’t answer ( quite a few apparently ) and they can spend a lot of time conferring - again edited down...Also is it just me but are the panellists (unlike policemen) getting older ?

Yes, I seem to remember in Bamber’s day it was very much an undegraduate competition.

[ardcarp]

It was. And didn't some teams 'play him up' a bit?

[cloughie]

It was. And didn't some teams 'play him up' a bit?

...and he had to hurry them!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yes, I seem to remember in Bamber’s day it was very much an undegraduate competition.

Happy days - loads of arts questions , little on maths , subatomic particles , dna or the periodic table.

[Pulcinella]

Yes, I seem to remember in Bamber’s day it was very much an unde[r]graduate competition.

As was the annual Oxford–Cambridge Boat race, I imagine.

[Pulcinella]

From today's Guardian:

Ahead of the grand final of the brain-squeezing series next Monday, test your mental mettle with 15 questions set by the show’s quizmasters.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/apr/02/lets-have-an-answer-take-our-fiendish-university-challenge-quiz

[ardcarp]

The wrong answer to one of the science questions is Laplace. However, he was quite a guy and is the subject of next week's In Our Time. The science-based episodes are usually rather good, as Melvyn (not being a scientist) is happy to let the experts get on with it! I do wish, by the way, IOT would do a programme on Thomas Young, polymath and subject of a recent book, The Last Man who knew Everything by Andrew Robinson.

[LHC]

From today's Guardian:

Ahead of the grand final of the brain-squeezing series next Monday, test your mental mettle with 15 questions set by the show’s quizmasters.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-r...challenge-quiz

I was going to post the same thing, but you beat me to it. I must say, having managed to score 14 (admittedly with some educated guesses), I didn’t think it was anything like as hard as the real UC questions.