University Challenge

[makropulos]

Oh dear. Das Jahr by Fanny Mendelssohn was beyond my ken. Also all but one of the quotes by Brahms. A bit tough for UC, I thought.
In general terms, the captain of the Strathclyde team was pretty much on the ball.

Fanny Mendelssohn's Das Jahr was indeed a tough one. December was easier because of the quotation from a Christmas chorale tune, but I guessed the others wrong. I liked the Brahms quotations but yes, I thought they were pretty tough for UC. Agree about the Strathclyde captain. I thought Imperial were disappointing - they've fielded much stronger teams in the past.

[seabright]

I agree about the Fanny Mendelssohn which I've never heard before or even knew about. They might have had better luck with Tchaikovsky's "The Seasons" (aka "The Months") but who knows?

[french frank]

Indeed. Quite difficult. Nobody could be expected to know the Fanny M, and you had a 1 in 12/11/10 [is that right?] chance of guessing it.

Just reading this article by a question setter of the Bamber Gascoigne days. It does occur to me that when it comes to some subjects - classical music probably one these days - that the setter digs out a question from the 'approved reference works' without having much idea of just how obscure (or obvious?) it is. Would each question be 'assessed' by an outsider? But when it comes to general knowledge there's bound to be a strong element of pot luck, I suppose.

[subcontrabass]

Just reading this article by a question setter of the Bamber Gascoigne days. It does occur to me that when it comes to some subjects - classical music probably one these days - that the setter digs out a question from the 'approved reference works' without having much idea of just how obscure (or obvious?) it is. Would each question be 'assessed' by an outsider? But when it comes to general knowledge there's bound to be a strong element of pot luck, I suppose.

Fanny Hensel's Das Jahr can hardly be counted as relating to an "approved reference work". It was not published until 1989, and there are only a handful of recordings.

[french frank]

Fanny Hensel's Das Jahr can hardly be counted as an "approved reference work". It was not published until 1989, and there are only a handful of recordings.

Well, there you are - though the 'approved reference works' meant Britannica, Grove &c. But the point still applies unless they keep their ref works up to date. It's a bit hit and miss as to what gets asked, it seems.

[Bryn]

Fanny Hensel's Das Jahr can hardly be counted as relating to an "approved reference work". It was not published until 1989, and there are only a handful of recordings.

A handful indeed. Amazon lists five, including a HIPP one.

[LMcD]

I would have struggled with movements from Tchaikowsky's 'The Seasons' - except for the relatively well-known 'June'. As for 'Das Jahr' ...well, the fact that I'd never even heard of it meant that I started off at something of a disadvantage Congratulations to the team that accurately guessed 'December'!

[subcontrabass]

Well, there you are - though the 'approved reference works' meant Britannica, Grove &c. But the point still applies unless they keep their ref works up to date. It's a bit hit and miss as to what gets asked, it seems.

This was definitely a "miss". Compare it with the questions a few weeks ago on First Symphonies by Russian composers.

[Nick Armstrong]

Oh dear. Das Jahr by Fanny Mendelssohn was beyond my ken. Also all but one of the quotes by Brahms. A bit tough for UC, I thought.
In general terms, the captain of the Strathclyde team was pretty much on the ball.

Agreed. Another one here who had never heard of Fanny's oeuvre. More like one of the trickier questions on the Alphabet Associations thread...

I'd never heard the three Brahms quotes, but managed to guess the three answers correctly.

[Serial_Apologist]

99% of the questions I don't know the answers to, which, for me, rather ruins any fun to be got out of this quiz now. I'm not even sure if being on the winning side means one is qualified in practicable solutions to humanity's most urgent problems in this day and age, but rather in proving to those worthily self-appointed to judge such things how "clever" one is. So I for one shan't be watching any more.

[vinteuil]

... I'm not even sure if being on the winning side means one is qualified in practicable solutions to humanity's most urgent problems in this day and age...

. I'm not sure that making one "qualified in practicable solutions to humanity's most urgent problems in this day and age" is the point of an undergraduate education. It certainly wasn't in my day - but then, I antedate Matthew Arnold and even John Henry Newman...


.

[Serial_Apologist]

. I'm not sure that making one "qualified in practicable solutions to humanity's most urgent problems in this day and age" is the point of an undergraduate education. It certainly wasn't in my day - but then, I antedate Matthew Arnold and even John Henry Newman....

Part of what I meant was that one of the problems of today is a narrowing of cultural perspectives of the kind that extrapolates factual knowledge from wider sociocultural contextualisation, and applauds and rewards its retrieval in accordance with competitive performance principles. To my mind University Challenge epitomises this, and it isn't what we're led to believe university education to be for by those who place a high intrinsic value on it, but nearer to the kind of memorisation regurgitation process required for passing GCSEs (or O levels in my day).

[Richard Tarleton]

Part of what I meant was that one of the problems of today is a narrowing of cultural perspectives of the kind that extrapolates factual knowledge from wider sociocultural contextualisation, and applauds and rewards its retrieval in accordance with competitive performance principles. To my mind University Challenge epitomises this, and it isn't what we're led to believe university education to be for by those who place a high intrinsic value on it, but nearer to the kind of memorisation regurgitation process required for passing GCSEs (or O levels in my day).

What are university finals other than "retrieval in accordance with competitive performance principles"?

From David Lodge, "Changing Places":

He liked examinations, always did well in them. Finals had been, in many ways, the supreme moment of his life. He frequently dreamed that he was taking the examinations again, ad these were happy dreams. Awake, he could without difficulty remember the questions he had elected to answer on every paper that hot, distant June. In the preceding months he had prepared himself with meticulous care, filling his mind with distilled knowledge, drop by drop, until, on the eve of the first paper (Old English Set Texts) it was almost brimming over. Each morning for the next ten days he bore this precious vessel to the examination halls and poured a measured quantity of the contents onto pages of ruled quarto. Day by day the level fell, until on the tenth day the vessel was empty, the cup was drained, the cupboard was bare. In the years that followed he set about replenishing his mind, but it was never quite the same. The sense of purpose was lacking – there was no great Reckoning against which he could hoard his knowledge, so that it tended to leak away as fast as he acquired it.

[french frank]

it isn't what we're led to believe university education to be for by those who place a high intrinsic value on it, but nearer to the kind of memorisation regurgitation process required for passing GCSEs (or O levels in my day).

Hmm. It wasn't until we introduced double-marking for final exams that I realised some people set questions which corresponded more or less closely to a lecture given, so that a dozen papers would all make the same points, same wording, same order. Whereas I set questions on which I thought a student should be able to make an intelligent argument if they were familiar with the literary text and had absorbed general principles. (But then, I probably didn't give very good lectures anyway so they'd have got a poor mark for regurgitating them )

[Serial_Apologist]

What are university finals other than "retrieval in accordance with competitive performance principles"?

From David Lodge, "Changing Places":

And look what became of Swallow and Zapp in the appositely-titled sequel, "Small World" - in which the author's narrative carries through to the end-process, grey conformity, seemingly.