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April 19th, 2003
11:45 pm - I am the Weakest Link, goodbye
People fairly often say to me "I bet you must be great at Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?". I'm not. I would be very pleasantly surprised if I could get to £32,000 on that these days. In general, I consider my general knowledge to be fairly poor considering how many quiz shows I watch. So when you want to calibrate something against your peers, you do an Internet quiz about it and compare your score with that of your Friends.
The good folks at BuzzerQuiz have posted a 100-question self-scored free response quiz which they claim was used to select players for the Oxford University quiz squad and various University Challenge teams. It's mostly academic, but contains a few questions on current affairs and pop culture centred around Britain in 2000. Frankly, it's a pretty good quiz - if you like quizzes and have 10-20 minutes free, give it a go.
I scored 41/100 without any help, about 25 of which I knew for sure and about 16 of which were guessed. There were five or six others I really should've got but didn't. I'd be very keen to know how you score on the same quiz; I expect that more of my Friends who try it are going to score more than 41 than not, but I'm curious to know. (Much as there's a theory that people tend to look for partners who are a little more attractive than themselves, I've-got-a-theory that people tend to befriend journals written by people they think are smarter than themselves. Furthermore, you're not likely to bother with the quiz unless you like doing quizzes.) If  quiz_master_man or hmtriplecrown can beat 41 even struggling against the UK-specific questions then I will sulk a little; if anyone else from the US can beat 41 then I will sulk a lot. ;-)
BuzzerQuiz may not be familiar to you. They're an initiative which organise competitions in the UK in which teams of four play a College Bowl/University Challenge-like game against each other without necessarily having to be in education. Now with a score of 41 I am likely only to be able to answer one or two questions per match, but I'd still like to try some day, especially as their tournaments are at least nominally open entry and guarantee even the weakest teams several games for their entry fee. In practice, they've only managed to attract established top teams to their contests so far, but hopefully they'll grow to the point where the lesser quizzers of this world can play too. (Seems horribly backward to me, but the organised quiz culture in this country started at the top.) Anyone else interested?
Current Mood:  curious
Current Music: "Card Sharks" clapping theme tune, a Nick teppanyaki earworm
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I got 42 that I knew for sure - but I didn't answer several I had a feeling about, the answers to which I suspected were Otto Von Bismarck, Gerhard Schroeder and Narcissus, so really it was 45. Hmm. Eh, overall I knew very little. I did know many of the literature references though. I also knew the current poet laureate. . .for the US, that is.
You obviously did not befriend me solely on the basis of my intelligence =) I got 64, although in my job (www.qwertyuiop.co.uk) I jolly well should. Great quiz - lots of "ooh, I sort-of know that" questions, and many you could work out from clues in the question. Did surprisingly well on the arts questions, pulling several out of the bag without really knowing why. Thought the quiz balance was quite heavy on the physics/chemistry questions, and probably not enough on sport, entertainment etc.
DJB Great quiz
Isn't it, yes?
Thought the quiz balance was quite heavy on the physics/chemistry questions, and probably not enough on sport, entertainment etc.
Well, they do acknowledge this and say it's deliberate. 'Sfar as I can tell, BuzzerQuiz's remit really is to be University Challenge for Britain at large.
Might your getting-out-more plans include quizzing trips? Evidently you really would be up there with 'em. Oh, and you always were on my phone-a-friend list. :-) I got 36, and I'm not from Britain... but that's mostly because I'm currently in high school, and therefore have a reason to know many of the science questions (who knew that that anatomy class would come in handy for learning 'epiglottis')? Some of them were guesses; I'm not sure how many. There were quite a few that I should have known and quite a few that I once knew and then forgot - but there were also many which were utterly unknown to me, mostly because they were Brit trivia.
Anyway, I didn't pass you up, so rest easy. I wouldn't have got nearly as many as 36 at your age. It's a compliment to your education as well as to you personally. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/2700142/569019) | | From: | condign |
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| Date: | April 19th, 2003 07:28 pm (UTC) |
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| | Hmm... | (Link) |
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Exactly 50. Although I maintain that the Control Panel is not a folder, so c:\windows\System (or System32) was as close as you could get to on that one. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/1527893/532519) | | From: | bateleur |
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| Date: | April 20th, 2003 01:37 am (UTC) |
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| | Re: Hmm... | (Link) |
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Although I maintain that the Control Panel is not a folder
It is on my system.
But then what do I know, I scored less than 40 (not sure exactly since I couldn't be bothered to write answers down).
| | From: | condign |
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| Date: | April 20th, 2003 02:24 am (UTC) |
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| | Re: Hmm... | (Link) |
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True, but not a folder in which system information is stored--it's a folder full of shortcuts. I thought of putting 'The Registry' (also not a folder), but didn't.
But I did get Brinksmanship, so... 33 here. Not bad for someone from the other side of the pond. :-) Nice icon. I watched that show when I was little because the whammies made me laugh. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/807533/382310) | | From: | tall_man |
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| Date: | April 20th, 2003 05:24 am (UTC) |
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| | Sulk a lot | (Link) |
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45. <kryten>Ah. Sulk mode.</kryten> 47, including lucky guesses. 59/100 here. A few were educated (or uneducated) guesses, but then there were some I should have got (my knowledge of Scandinavian languages momentarily escaped me), some I could have got (couldn't remember the name of the pop artist but knew it when I saw it), and several of the science ones that I would have got in a heartbeat 14 years ago while I was actually getting my physics and chemistry A levels. Still fairly satisfied, really. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/63488894/719755) | | From: | jumbach |
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| Date: | April 20th, 2003 10:15 am (UTC) |
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| | You did better than me! | (Link) |
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I got 20, answering the following questions correctly: 9, 12, 17, 20, 22, 24, 35, 37, 41, 44, 53, 59, 64*, 71, 79, 81, 83, 84, 85, 100.
* I changed my answer at the end, before clicking over to see the answers. So it may not count as "correct."
58/100, 29 on both the front and back halves. If I had paid better attention to the wording, I should have guessed Geiger Counter.
Alas. :)
No complaining about the UK bias here. I did get that Friends question right, after all.
-Myron 77, that's seven-tee-seven. Go me! I've always found University Challenge beneath me...
I fell down on the chemistry questions; I consider myself a scientist but have no science A levels, so perhaps it's time to visit the library. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/2501529/588494) | | |  Re: Easy pappy
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Hmm. You must read a lot. Perhaps you should become a librarian or something.
With "mad trivoid sk1ll0rz" like that, why don't you participate in more quizzes? Sounds like there are prizes going begging for you. There's always the possibility that you might not actually enjoy quizzing, but I dare say you would relish the chance to administer "smacks down" in the quizzical stylee. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/4353120/723117) | | From: | addedentry |
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| Date: | April 21st, 2003 10:15 am (UTC) |
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| | Re: Easy pappy | (Link) |
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I neglected to point out that I scored 77 under the influence of 3.5 units of alcohol.
Why don't I participate? Pathological shyness, simple as that. I also have a major blank spot - all sport - which is effective disqualification in some setups. (I knew the Fosbury flop in this case, but only as a Hungarian Statesman question.) This is why I'm suggesting participation in a team quiz, so I can get all the sport questions wrong and you can get all the other questions right. :-) UGH I SUCKED AT THIS. I REFUSE TO REVEAL MY SCORE. >:0!!!! The number sixtyseven springs to mind, for various reasons. ![[User Picture]](https://l-userpic.livejournal.com/4545584/780090) | | | Well, I enjoyed that! | (Link) |
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I'm usually absolutely appalling at quizzes, on the basis that my specialised areas of ignorance include entertainment (films, TV, popular music), sports (any) and current affairs. This quiz was much better.
I scored 65, of which I knew 50, and made educated guesses for the other 15. Of the ones I didn't know, 9 of them were ones where I kicked myself for not remembering the answers.
On the whole, quite pleased, though. *happy smile* | From: | (Anonymous) |
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| Date: | April 25th, 2003 10:56 am (UTC) |
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| |  Well I'm glad to hear it...
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It's a sure-fire thing that whatever you write on the 'net will eventually find its way back to people. Uh-huh, you guessed it, I'm the sap that wrote that quiz.
Anyway, I'm glad to hear people enjoyed it; I'm slowly working on a new one which will be slightly less science-heavy, which should appear sometime next month. The delay is down to the fact that I'm rather snowed under writing for the British Student Quiz Championships (http://www.buzzerquiz.com/student/nat03-main.html) in a fortnight (argh! that soon?).
Anyway, new teams are always welcome at BuzzerQuiz tournaments, particularly to dilute the line-up of old faces that seem to be coming around regularly. Either keep an eye on the web site (http://www.buzzerquiz.com) or subscribe to Quiz GB (http://www.geocities.com/rob_linham/quizgb/index.html) where we post our announcements.
Rob (BuzzerQuiz person) I scored 64, guessing several but also missing a few that I may have got on a better day.
Oddly, I got 37/50 in the first half, and a disappointing 27/50 on the second. Predictably, I got almost full marks for the geography and history questions, most right on the literature and science questions, zero on modern culture (pop music, TV, film etc). Hie thee to quiz teams forthwith. |
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