King William's College Quiz
December 21, 2004 2:24 AM   Subscribe

King William's College Quiz 2004-2005 (PDF) has the reputation for being the hardest quiz in the world. It's also the hundredth edition, and they've made it extra hard this year! For what it's worth, here's last years Questions and Answers.
posted by BigCalm (41 comments total)
 
I can only get 6 without cheating (i.e. No googling).
posted by BigCalm at 2:25 AM on December 21, 2004


The Answers
posted by mosch at 2:34 AM on December 21, 2004


Those are the Answers to LAST YEARS QUIZ mosch.
posted by seanyboy at 2:45 AM on December 21, 2004


Above is a corrected link to last year's answers.

This year's answers are mostly a mystery to me. I knew a few of the answers from sections 1, 10, 11 and 12 but most of rest are just baffling.
posted by mosch at 2:45 AM on December 21, 2004


I'm so glad that I didn't go to KWC!

Not only are the teachers complete so-and-so's; the pupils are stuck-up, pretentious, rich, public school boys; the sports teams field over-aged/over-developed players... but every year they produce the mother of all quizzes, specifically designed to make you feel small, stupid, and utterly insignificant..

Meh! :-)
posted by Chunder at 2:58 AM on December 21, 2004


Some answers (and some guesses) in the same style as last year.

1.5 I'd take a guess at Sherlock Holmes

6.8 Hadrian's Wall

10.6 Einstein

11.3 Rome (Nero)

12.1 Johnathon Edwards
12.9 Roger Bannister
12.10 Flying Scotsman (?)

14.7 John Brown

18.8 A Eurostat Publication
posted by biffa at 3:01 AM on December 21, 2004


My imagination, or is it more Anglo-centric this year?

Not that I will use that as a defense, mind you. If I get 12, I'll be happy.
posted by RavinDave at 3:09 AM on December 21, 2004


1.8 refers to the olympics, not sure where it was held that year
12.7 is a tennis game (mcenroe v borg 1982???)
12.8 I think is Paula Radcliffe's record breaking London Marathon
14.4 I think is Brown Sauce (can be HP and Daddies)
posted by BigCalm at 3:09 AM on December 21, 2004


I like any latin motto that encourages google searches. That said, if I were making the most well-known quiz on earth I would probably try to spell the first clue right. 1.1 Captain Valdemar Johannes GundEl's ship The Norge hit St. Helen's reef.
posted by mokujin at 3:29 AM on December 21, 2004


I have to ask, why would anyone want to know the answer's to most of those questions? Would you not consider yourself to have wasted a considerable amount of time, effort and brainpower if you were able to answer them? Or is that just me being a jealous thicko?
posted by gt16 at 4:31 AM on December 21, 2004


My Guesses:
1.3: Mackintosh
1.8: St. Louis (World's Fair)
1.9: General Slocum boiler explosion/fire.

10.1: Pope John Paul II
10.3: Quant
10.4: This is from Frankenstein...
10.6: Einstein
10.7: Orsen Welles (is this something other than Citizen Kane?)

11.1: a gambling hall...
11.3: Rome
11.4: The Reichstag
11.10: Chicago

12.4: Greg Norman
12.7: I can't remember who played this tennis match, yet I could swear I watched it on ESPN Classic.
12.8: Radcliffe
12.9: Bannister

17.1: nothing?

And I don't even have a decent guess on the rest.
posted by mosch at 4:33 AM on December 21, 2004


Remember -- every group has a theme. If you can crack the theme, it can often given you a few answers that you'd have missed.
posted by eriko at 5:35 AM on December 21, 2004


6.1 is pi, isn't it? Or is that too easy...?
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:38 AM on December 21, 2004


Oops, that was last year's quiz, but at least I was right.
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:39 AM on December 21, 2004


I got most of these, but I just don't want to share the answers right now. Really. I wrote it. Really. At least last year's was easy. Really.
posted by OmieWise at 6:01 AM on December 21, 2004


18.10 is charley, I only know this because I lived through it.
posted by the theory of revolution at 6:02 AM on December 21, 2004


k, my boss has come up with some answers (still no googling!):
1.4 Haili Silasse (of Ethiopia)
3.4 Stone of scone
4.2 Dr Crippen
8.1 William Tell
8.5 is the fishing trawler bought by Greenpeace
8.6 refers to the Exxon Valdez tanker disaster we think in Barent's Strait?
section 10 we're starting to think is about eastern europeans (e.g. The pope, Einstein, Eisenstein, etc.)
10.7 Eisenstein (Battleship Potemkin)
11.1 Great fire of London (it's a picture-series)
Section 13 we're thinking refers to programs on Radio 4 which broadcasts on 198 Longwave. 13.2 could be Everyman for example
Section 14 may be colours:
14.6 Yellow leaf?
14.7 John Brown
14.10 The SS?
15.7 Harry Lime (of third man fame)
17.6 Evolution by erasmus darwin?
posted by BigCalm at 6:28 AM on December 21, 2004


An entire section on the weddings of reigning or future English sovereigns?

Useless.
posted by MrZero at 7:06 AM on December 21, 2004


8.3 Williamsburg, Virginia
8.5 Rainbow Warrior?
9.2 Ben Lomond
9.3 Snowdon
9.4 on Bredon
9.10 on Malvern's lonely heights
10.6 Albert Einstein

The theme for 10 looks like "ends in stein."

11.10 The Great Chicago Fire

The theme for 15 is "fruits."

15.1 The Peach State
15.2 on Blueberry Hill
15.3 a gooseberry
posted by naomi at 7:40 AM on December 21, 2004


2.2 The Vicar of Bray
posted by BlueMetal at 7:55 AM on December 21, 2004


Section 14 may be colours:

Actually I think it's all "browns." Someone mentioned 14.4 as "brown sauce," 14.7 is "John Brown" and for 14.10 the SS were the "Brown Shirts" weren't they?
posted by dnash at 8:02 AM on December 21, 2004


No, the Brown Shirts were distinct from the SS.
posted by crunchburger at 8:48 AM on December 21, 2004


Brown sounds reasonable

14.1 Thecla betulae L. is a moth, the brown hairsreak, and
14.5 Tom Brown did not like the Dean of Christ Church, a Dr. Fell (I do not like thee Dr. Fell).
posted by BlueMetal at 8:49 AM on December 21, 2004


...the hardest quiz in the world...

... but a godsend for escaping family Christmas gatherings.

X (with newspaper): "What PJ is 'moody', 'iron-plated', 'religious', 'scrofulous', or 'digital'?"
Me; "I don't care. I don't have to do exams any more".
Y: "Oh, go on, it's interesting. What's the connection between Snoody's Viridian Bellenger, Inuitakatakatakut Island, Grisling paper, and Beetroodt-am-Rijn?"
Me: "Ah. I can look that one up on the Internet". (escapes to office for an hour).
posted by raygirvan at 9:07 AM on December 21, 2004


I have to ask, why would anyone want to know the answer's to most of those questions? Would you not consider yourself to have wasted a considerable amount of time, effort and brainpower if you were able to answer them? Or is that just me being a jealous thicko?

If you knew the answers because you happened to have read a bunch of lists of trivia, it would be time wasted. If you knew the answers because you had that well rounded a knowledge of history that you knew these things contextually and as part of a wider understanding, etc, then I would not say it was time wasted. I do think it's an important distinction though.
posted by mdn at 10:44 AM on December 21, 2004


6.3 Offa's Dyke
6.4 the Pennine Way
8.9 William Rufus
(which adds with all the other 8.x answers to make me suspect vaguely that 8.7 might be Just William)
9.7 brings to mind a hill/mountain in (South?) Wales, as starring in a film with Hugh Grant, but I have no idea what it's called.
11.2 the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos
15.8 a cherry-picker
17.1 might or might not be Foxtrot.
posted by Lebannen at 10:44 AM on December 21, 2004


Yes, 17.1 is foxtrot, and 17.4 is the quick brown fox (jumps over a lazy dog), so it looks like 17.x are all "fox" related.
posted by rocket88 at 11:12 AM on December 21, 2004


I want to see Ken Jennings's score on this.
posted by TeamBilly at 1:31 PM on December 21, 2004


Warning - I've compiled all the metafilter answers so far below, plus adding my own. If you don't want to see more (possibly correct) answers, don't read this post.

I omitted answers that seemed like they had to be wrong (violated theme or whatever), but included those which were educated guesses - who knows, they may be right. So far, that gives the Metafilter Quiz-takers about 64 answers filled in, with about six being guesses and the rest being things people seemed fairly sure of - so figure a probable score of around 58 so far, out of a potential 180.

We're doing the best on section 8 ("William"), with all ten done. We're also doing OK on "fires", "records", and "fruit" with six apiece (some guesses in there, though), and not badly on "1904", "-stein", and " brown" with five apiece. What I suspect to be "connections between places", "mountains in poetry", and "foxes" each have four apiece, and we pretty much suck at the rest.

The Metafilter Answers so far:

Section 1 – Likely Theme: 1904 (not a lot of help there)
1.1 St. Helen’s Reef
1.3 Mackintosh
1.4 Haili Silasse (of Ethiopia)
1.8 St. Louis (World's Fair)
1.9 General Slocum boiler explosion/fire.

Section 2 – Likely Theme: Churchmen
2.2 The Vicar of Bray

Section 3 – Likely Theme: Unknown
3.2 Boswell
3.7 Hawthorne

Section 4 – Likely Theme: Poisoners
4.2 Dr Crippen

Section 5 – Likely Theme: Unknown (are these names of ships?)

Section 6 – Likely Theme: Things that connect things to other things?
6.1 The Vasaloppet
6.3 Offa's Dyke
6.4 the Pennine Way
6.8 Hadrian's Wall

Section 7 – Likely Theme: Marriages of English Zzzzzzzzz . . .

Section 8 – Likely Theme: William
8.1 William Tell
8.2 William IV
8.3 Williamsburg, Virginia
8.4 Williamanmary the Orange
8.5 The Sir William Hardy (renamed the Rainbow Warrior)
8.6 Prince William Sound
8.7 Father William
8.8 Just William
8.9 William Rufus
8.10 Sweet William

Section 9 - Likely Theme: Mountains in poetry?
9.2 Ben Lomond
9.3 Snowdon
9.4 on Bredon
9.10 on Malvern's lonely heights

Section 10 – Likely Theme: Ends with “stein”
10.4 Frankenstein
10.5 Wallenstein
10.6 Einstein
10.7 Eisenstein
10.8 Bechstein

Section 11 – Likely Theme: Fires
11.1 Great fire of London
11.2 the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos
11.3 Rome
11.4 The Reichstag
11.6 Harrod’s
11.10 Chicago

Section 12 – Likely Theme: Records?
12.1 Johnathon Edwards
12.4 Greg Norman
12.7 is a tennis game (mcenroe v borg 1982???)
12.8 Paula Radcliffe
12.9 Roger Bannister
12.10 Flying Scotsman (?)

Section 13 – Likely Theme: Unknown, total guesses below
13.4 Trafalgar ?
13.6 Schooner ?
13.9 Bonavista ?

Section 14 – Likely Theme: brown
14.1 the brown hairsreak
14.4 Brown Sauce
14.5 Tom Brown
14.7 John Brown
14.10 Brownshirts

Section 15 – Likely Theme: fruit
15.1 The Peach State
15.2 on Blueberry Hill
15.3 a gooseberry
15.7 Harry Lime
15.8 a cherry-picker
15.9 probably referring to Mark Lemon ?

Section 16 – Likely Theme: Shared first names

Section 17 – Likely Theme: foxes
17.1 Foxtrot
17.2 Edward Fox
17.4 the quick brown fox (jumps over a lazy dog)
17.5 The Fox and the Goat

Section 18 – Likely Theme: 2004
18.8 A Eurostat Publication
18.10 Charley
posted by kyrademon at 3:14 AM on December 22, 2004


6.9 Channel Tunnel

12.6 is someone's cricket averages, career wickets, total career runs, don't know, 316* will be his highest 1st class score (*=not out), 50.65 his batting average.

18.7 I think it might be Princess Alice, who carked it in 2004 at age 102 but don't understand why this broke all records.

Thanks for pulling all this together kyrademon.
posted by biffa at 3:44 AM on December 22, 2004


Great work on section 8 there!

Section 2 I think is Churchmen from classic literature, to be more precise.
2.4 might be Obadiah Slope

10.1 Leonard Bernstein wrote a requiem mass for JFK, commissioned by Jackie Onassis.
10.3 Helena Rubenstein

Section 13 I'm leaning more and more towards items from BBC radio 4 longwave (which broadcasts on 198 longwave), these include yesterday in parliment, test match special, the shipping forecast. For example, 13.9 could be Mallin head, a point mentioned in the shipping forecast and is also known as Puffin Island. (and 13.4 could be the food program, which acknowledges Apple Day, 13.1 could be an adaptation of the Jules Verne book Captain Antifer, etc).
posted by BigCalm at 4:43 AM on December 22, 2004


sorry, 13.9 is Rockall, if it is from the shipping forecast.

Yes I've given up and I'm starting to use google.
posted by BigCalm at 4:51 AM on December 22, 2004


Thanks, BigCalm! Though I was actually surprised that no one got at least 8.7 (from Alice in Wonderland) before I did.

Well, as the thread descends into two-day-old apathy, it looks like our combined score is probably somewhere in the 60's. Not bad at all, I think. I suspect many of the things we did the poorest on were the most Anglocentric sections. Guess we need more Brits here.
posted by kyrademon at 10:30 AM on December 22, 2004


Nod, just figured out most of section 13 - they're all shipping forecast stations:
13.1 (must be a reference in Jules Verne's Captain Antifer at a guess North Utsire).
13.2 Irish Sea (embraces the isle of man)
13.3 Hebrides (Mendlessohn's "Fingal's cave" is also known as Hebrides)
13.4 Trafalgar
13.6 Dogger
13.7 Bailey
13.8 Fisher (Ben Fisher created the cartoon strip)
13.9 Rockall
13.10 Fitzroy (Captain of HMS Beagle, and a pioneer of weather-forecasting).
posted by BigCalm at 1:36 PM on December 22, 2004


Oh and:
6.5 Leighton Buzzard Railway
12.6 Sir Jack Hobbs
12.7 Bjorn Borg (Borg v Macenroe final 1980, not 1982, apologies).
posted by BigCalm at 1:41 PM on December 22, 2004


Now that I've declared my answers final to myself, I'm googling for as much as I can. I'm pissed at myself over section two - I've read at least five of the books referenced that I didn't recognize, including one just a few months ago.

Ah, well.
posted by kyrademon at 4:41 PM on December 22, 2004


Well, as this is probably just about it for this thread, I’m going to post all the answers I can, including both the Metafilter ones and the extra ones I got by cheating via Google. So, warning: Googled answers below. They’re the asterisked ones.

It looks like the total Metafilter score as of the moment on this is:
Out 180 questions,
146 with some kind of possibly correct answer
34 unanswered, even using Google

Out of 146 answered questions:
76 answered without cheating, all seeming quite likely correct
68 answered by cheating, 4 of those answers highly questionable

It’s pretty reasonable that none of us did well on sections 4, 5, 7, and 16, as they all required highly specialized knowledge (some of which most people don’t give a damn about – I might have been able to google some more answers on 7, but doing so was getting as tedious as the subject.) Section 13 also required specialized knowledge, but someone happened to have it. No one figured out the theme on section 3, which probably is what kept us from doing well there. Section 2 is the only one I feel like I should have done better on.

Anyway . . .

Section 1 – Likely Theme: 1904
1.1 St. Helen’s Reef
1.2
1.3 Mackintosh
1.4 Haili Silasse (of Ethiopia)
*1.5 Anton Checkhov
*1.6 Madama Butterfly
*1.7 Royal Horticultural Society
1.8 St. Louis (World's Fair)
1.9 General Slocum boiler explosion/fire.
1.10

Section 2 – Likely Theme: Churchmen of fiction
*2.1 Demon Davy (Jamaica Inn)
2.2 The Vicar of Bray (The Vicar of Bray)
*2.3 probably Clergyman Sam Weech (The Titfield Thunderbolt)
*2.4 Mr. Collins (Pride and Predjudice)
*2.5 Mr. Chadband (Bleak House)
*2.6 Mr. Roundhay (His Last Bow, by Arthur Conan Doyle)
*2.7 Mr. Brocklehurst (Jane Eyre)
*2.8 probably John Wellington Wells (The Sorcerer)
*2.9 probably Mr. Laputa (Prester John)
2.10

Section 3 – Likely Theme: Unknown
*3.1 Walker Art Gallery, William Brown Street, Liverpool?
3.2 Boswell
3.3
*3.4 Maybe Greyfriars Cemetary?
3.5
3.6
3.7 Nathaniel Hawthorne
3.8
3.9
3.10

Section 4 – Likely Theme: Poisoners
*4.1 Mary Wilson
4.2 Dr Crippen
*4.3 Dr Edward William Pritchard
*4.4 Dr. Thomas Neill Cream
4.5
*4.6 Frances Howard
*4.7 Dr. Lamson
*4.8 Graham Frederick Young
*4.9 John Armstrong (unless his wife Janet did it)
4.10

Section 5 – Likely Theme: Pier Damage
*5.1 Deal Pier
*5.2 Cromer Pier
*5.3 Bangor (Garth) Pier
*5.4 Southend Pier
5.5
*5.6 Penarth Pier
*5.7 Yarmouth Pier
*5.8 Blackpool North Pier
*5.9 Saltburn Pier
*5.10 Skegness Pier

Section 6 – Likely Theme: Things that connect things to other things
6.1 The Vasaloppet
*6.2 The Glacier Express
6.3 Offa's Dyke
6.4 the Pennine Way
6.5 Leighton Buzzard Railway
*6.6 A suspension railway
6.7
6.8 Hadrian's Wall
6.9 Channel Tunnel
*6.10 The Barcelona metro Blue Line (line 5)

Section 7 – Likely Theme: Marriages of English Zzzzzzzzz . . .
7.1
7.2
*7.3 Henry VI – Margaret of Anjou
7.4
*7.5 Henry VIII – Katherine Parr
*7.6 Edward I – Eleanor of Castille
*7.7 Richard I – Beregaria of Navarre
7.8
*7.9 William IV - Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen
*7.10 Edward III – Phillipa of Hainault

Section 8 – Likely Theme: William
8.1 William Tell
8.2 William IV
8.3 Williamsburg, Virginia
8.4 Williamanmary the Orange (from “1066 and all that”)
8.5 The Sir William Hardy (renamed the Rainbow Warrior)
8.6 Prince William Sound
8.7 Father William (from “Alice In Wonderland”)
8.8 Just William
8.9 William Rufus
8.10 Sweet William

Section 9 - Likely Theme: Mountains in poetry?
9.1
9.2 Ben Lomond
9.3 Snowdon
9.4 on Bredon
9.5
*9.6 high Plynlimmon's
9.7
9.8
*9.9 Ben Bulben's
9.10 on Malvern's lonely heights

Section 10 – Likely Theme: Ends with “stein”
10.1 Leonard Bernstein
10.2
10.3 Helena Rubenstein
10.4 Dr. Frankenstein
10.5 Wallenstein
10.6 Albert Einstein
10.7 Sergei Eisenstein
10.8 Karl Bechstein
*10.9 Lady Rothenstein
10.10

Section 11 – Likely Theme: Fires
11.1 a gambling house
11.2 the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos
11.3 Rome
11.4 The Reichstag
*11.5 Matilda’s house
11.6 Harrod’s
*11.7 the Alesund fire
11.8
*11.9 The Great fire of London
11.10 Chicago

Section 12 – Likely Theme: Sports Records
12.1 Johnathon Edwards
*12.2 Cambridge
12.3
12.4 Greg Norman
*12.5 Arsenal
12.6 Sir Jack Hobbs
12.7 Bjorn Borg (Borg v Macenroe final 1980).
12.8 Paula Radcliffe
12.9 Roger Bannister
*12.10 John McGuinness

Section 13 – Likely Theme: Shipping forecast stations
13.1
13.2 Irish Sea (embraces the isle of man)
13.3 Hebrides (Mendlessohn's "Fingal's cave" is also known as Hebrides)
13.4 Trafalgar
13.5
13.6 Dogger
13.7 Bailey
13.8 Fisher (Ben Fisher created the cartoon strip)
13.9 Rockall
13.10 Fitzroy (Captain of HMS Beagle, and a pioneer of weather-forecasting)

Section 14 – Likely Theme: brown
14.1 the brown hairstreak
*14.2 Brown Clee Hill
*14.3 Father Brown
14.4 Brown Sauce
14.5 Tom Brown
*14.6 Brown’s Hotel
14.7 John Brown
14.8
*14.9 Brown on Resolution
14.10 Brownshirts

Section 15 – Likely Theme: fruit
15.1 The Peach State
15.2 on Blueberry Hill
15.3 a gooseberry
15.7 Harry Lime (of third man fame)
15.8 a cherry-picker
15.9 Mark Lemon (a publisher of Punch)

Section 16 – Likely Theme: Shared first names *of neighboring two-named English towns
*16.1 Duntisbourne
*16.2 Hemingford
*16.3 Manningford
*16.4 Lillingstone
*16.5 Ashford
*16.6 Kibworth
*16.7 Carew
*16.8 Cropwell
*16.9 Pillerton
*16.10 Itchen

Section 17 – Likely Theme: foxes
17.1 Foxtrot
17.2 Edward Fox
*17.3 The Red Fox
17.4 the quick brown fox (jumps over a lazy dog)
17.5 The Fox and the Goat
*17.6 foxglove
17.7
*17.8 Could be The Springfield Fox?
17.9
*17.10 Fox Glacier

Section 18 – Likely Theme: 2004
18.1
18.2
*18.3 The Calayan Rail
18.4
*18.5 As far as I can tell, a Welsh rugby team all of whose members had the last name Jones and therefore needed nicknames
*18.6 Maybe Ray O'Callaghan, although I have no idea why
18.7 Princess Alice
18.8 A Eurostat Publication
18.9 Hurricane Charley
18.10
posted by kyrademon at 11:18 PM on December 22, 2004


I've uploaded our answers so far here
posted by BigCalm at 3:12 AM on December 23, 2004


7.8 Charles II - Catherine of Braganza (Portsmouth)

9.5 Cnoc Bréanainn/Mount Brandon

15.4 International dateline
15.10 P.F. "Plum" Warner
posted by biffa at 7:32 AM on December 23, 2004


7.4 Edward IV - Elizabeth WYDEVILLE (Grafton Regis)

18.8 should more properly be 'Eurostat Statistical Compendium'
posted by biffa at 8:11 AM on December 23, 2004


There's an interview with the guy who sets the quiz here.
posted by biffa at 7:55 AM on December 26, 2004


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