Tuesday, December 25, 2012

King William's College General Knowledge Paper 2012

Enjoy.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Bleedin' 'ell. De'know almost nuffink in this entire quizionaire.

Tell you what tho, my sons'n'dough'ers: t'row summa dese in witch yer reglar fav brain teasers, cor the fur'll be flyin'.

Ken Houghton said...

"an average score of two."

I'm not certain how much I can raise that; fairly certain 3.10 is La Boehme, and 3.7 looks like Othello, though I don't remember a suicide. (I would swear 12.1 is "George Bernard Shaw," but I could be wrong.) 14.10 seems worth a reasonable guess, but then we're already well past 100 questions.

There are a few others that should be easy to a well-educated Brit (i.e., people forced to read Famous British Authors), such as 2.8 or 7.3, and probably even 11.3.

But other than 18.6 being "the death of Neil Armstrong," would anyone other than a TLS editor bet they could accurately answer a couple dozen without looking them up?

Roger said...

The answer to the one about Howe's patent infringement suit is Singer.

Other than that, without Googling, I'm stumped.

Anonymous said...

I think 3 is all Verdi operas:
1. Rigoletto 2. Falstaff 3. ?? 4. ??? 5. Trovatore 6. ?? 7. Otello 8. ballo in maschera 9. Don carlo (I think) 10. Traviata

Not sure why, but I share Ken Houghton's sense that 12.1 is Shaw.

15.6 is St. Denis, I believe.

That's all I can figure off the top of my head.

Roger said...

Don't be modest, Anon. You've beat everyone.

PurpleGirl said...

I looked at the quiz. I'm gonna wait to see the published answers in the new year.

Mrs Tilton said...

Here are my guesses. I'll be pleased if even half are correct:

1.5 Jared Diamond
2.6 Erszebet Bathory
2.8 Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist
3.2 Falstaff
3.7 Otello
3.10 La Bohème
4.7 Benedict Spinoza
4.9 Leeuwenhoek
7.8 Ashbourne
9.2 Hesiod (and Aeschylus, and many others!)
9.4 Plato
9.6 Socrates
9.8 Pigres, attr. Homer
13.6 Meissen Porcelain
13.10 Zsolnay
14.6 Your languid spleen
16.5 Erwin Schrödinger
18.6 The landing of Curiosity on Mars

No googling, but I did wiki "Zsolnay" to check the spelling.

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