The first cut is the: answers

Here’s a very quick post with the answers to the questions posted over the weekend in The first cut is the…

I don’t have anything else to tell you… so let’s get on with it!

Read Full Post »

The first cut is the…

It’s not often that you can pin down which question in a quiz is the hardest.  Over the course of a few hours, the questions asked at the start of the quiz fade away from your short-term memory, being replaced by their more recent counterparts.

Not so on Tuesday night last, when I attended the weekly quiz night in Gilligan’s, Claremorris.  Question 1 it was.  The very first of what would turn out to be 104 questions.  I doubt anyone in the room got it right.  That said, the team whose answers we were marking did manage to get the first names right so perhaps I’m being quick to judge.

After that, things got considerably easier.  The winning team’s final score of 92 points making this pretty clear.  My team trailed in second, on 88.

Read Full Post »

Defeat from the jaws of victory: answers

Here are the answers to the (sports) questions posed earlier in the week in Defeat from the jaws of victory.

I’d like to tell you about one more unpleasant thing that happened at this quiz.

A member of a team who are, apparently, in the hunt for victory each year in this quiz copped on pretty early that we were a serious team.  This chap got in to the habit of coming by our table after each round to see how we’d got on.  We were sitting near the bar so I guess he could claim that he was (always) just on his way up for a drink but we thought his intention was clear enough – he was worried about how well we were doing.

Now, whenever I’m doing a quiz I tend to put my phone out on the table.  I don’t think there’s any need to deny that I own a phone.  Also, I’m not doing anything surreptitious with it, so what have I got to hide?  At the midway interval, your man came over to see how we’d got on with the previous round.  We told him we’d definitely missed the Italian scorer in the Premier League question below.  “Are ye sure?” he asked. “Yeah, we’ve just looked up the answer on the phone,” we told him*. He did a very dramatic ‘Tut, tut’ thing and moved on.

Anyway, so what, you’re asking.

Well, after the picture round, when we weren’t at our most ebulient, he arrives over to see how we’ve done.

“We’re out of it” we tell him. “We only got seven of them.”

“Seven?!” he said, his tone indicating that they’d done much better.  “Well, I guess ye couldn’t look them up on the phone.”

What. A. P&:<k.

Read Full Post »

Defeat from the jaws of victory

Before we get into 2012 on the blog I must tell you all about my very disappointing end to the 2011 quiz year.  Expect the worst and all your surprises will be happy ones, they say.  The opposite of this being that, just when you think you’re doing well, the rug will get pulled out from under you.

And so it was, at the annual Claremorris AFC Sports Quiz, which took place in the Dalton Inn on the Wednesday before Christmas.  RTÉ’s Martin Carney was the host, for reasons I couldn’t fathom.  He added a little glamour to the whole occasion I guess!

It was my first time taking part in the event but I’d heard great things about it.  The questions were said to be of a very hard standard with a great variety of sporting knowledge needed to prosper.  So, being in contention throughout the night before hitting the front after round 8 would be something to be thrilled about, surely?

In quizzing, as in sport, how a result arrives dominates the memory of the result itself. Who’s more happy with a 2-2 draw – the team that lead 2-0 or the team that pulled back the two goal deficit? Yet, they both finished with the same result, didn’t they?

Read Full Post »

Look behind you

Happy new year one and all! Let’s hope 2012 holds as much quizzing fun as 2011 did.  For a final moment though, let’s look back at the highlight of 2011, our trip to the European Quizzing Championships, one last time.  Mike and myself have already had our say.  Now it’s David’s turn.

And so, late to the party I arrive and whether I’ve brought the finest wine or the cheapest bottle of generic vodka will be in the eye of the beholder. The entrées have been provided by John and an intriguing little number supplied by Mike but enough of tortured party metaphors and let us talk of Bruges.

Looking back after this length of time, it is even more obvious to me that there are fundamental failing within Irish quizzing that mean that Ireland as a nation is a long way from ever appearing in the finals of the EQC. John and Mike have made most of the salient points on this issue but there are a couple more I’d like to throw into the mix

I think Mike nailed it on the head by challenging quiz setters to no longer pander to their audience. Something I’ve been accused of more than once is setting table quizzes that are far too hard and I did write half the questions for the supposed quiz from hell (see Don’t work… too hard; however, the shocking round was written by the silent-but-deadly Michelle) but I honestly believe that a) it wasn’t that hard a quiz and b) that making it a quiz where the scores are higher, the central premise of it being a GK quiz, i.e. the display of more general knowledge than your opponents, would have been lost. This is not the Special Olympics, not everyone “can be a winner” so why not accept that and reward ostentatious outbursts of intellectualism?

Read Full Post »

A quiz to get you through the holidays

Belated Christmas wishes to all the site’s readers.  I hope you had a lovely day and didn’t eat too much!

The blog’s Chinese correspondent, Kieran, pointed me in the direction of a quiz billed as the “world’s hardest”.  It was published on The Guardian’s website on December 22.

Secondary school students on the Isle of Man are obviously very knowledgeable – generally.

From the Guardian website:

Pupils at King William’s college on the Isle of Man have been tormented by its annual general knowledge quiz since 1905. Until 1999, the quiz was compulsory, with 300 pupils aged between 11 and 18 having to answer the 100 cryptic questions in a set time – the average score being two.

So, do you think you can beat a score of two? I glanced through it and I think I’ve got about five but they are cryptic and the answers won’t be announced until the middle of January so even I will have to wait and see.

Check it out at: www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/dec/22/king-williams-college-quiz-2011

Read Full Post »

Now that’s what I call answers

Here are the answers to the questions posted last week in Now that’s what I call…

I’ll be back later today with a post about a very tough quizzing experience I had last night.

In the meantime, click on the Continue Reading… for the answers.

Read Full Post »

Now that’s what I call…

… a Christmas quiz.*

The final quiz of 2011 took place in Gilligan’s, Claremorris, on Tuesday last and, fittingly, it was Christmas themed.

The picture round featured 12 “santas”, there was a round in which we had to name the carols which matched the cryptic clues and we had a round in which the questions were nothing to do with Christmas but the answers were homonyms of things that were.  It was very well done.

I was on the same team for the second week in a row.  That’s right, even though the tables are pulled from a hat, we three (kings) managed to end up together once again.  Thankfully, while we hadn’t been anywhere near winning last week, this time we managed to take home the final prize of the year.

It turns out we know a lot about Christmas.

Read Full Post »

Delightfully obscure answers

Here are the answers to the questions posed in yesterday’s last week’s Delightful obscurity post.  I’m sorry these took so long to appear on the site.  I’ve had a very busy last few days. Chief among those activites which kept me away from the site was the upgrade to Mrs tablequiz.net’s website, leavingcertenglish.net. Check it out if you feel like being educated!

Anyway, let’s move on.  Click the continue to see the answers.

Read Full Post »

Delightful obscurity

Not long after Mike’s post on questions and how, knowingly or unknowingly, the question setter may ease them for the benefit of the crowd hit this site, I attended the weekly Tuesday quiz in Gilligan’s Bar, Claremorris.

This week’s quizmaster was Mick, my recent team-mate on a couple of successful outings.  He produced a quiz to savour with questions coming from all angles and obscure locations. He opened up with a round featuring songs with numbers in the title. Let me tell you, not alone had I not heard of some of the songs involved, but, in two or three of them, I’d never heard of the artist either!

That set the tone. A couple of rounds were played out to a soundtrack of audible groans from the crowd but, after Bruges and this week’s discussion on difficulty, I found it very entertaining.  Why do we quiz if not to be challenged?

My favourite was a round on Shakespeare.  Yes, we all know “Forsooth I know not why I am so sad…” but do you know what play it’s from? And which character said it? It turned out that I did, although it was an educated guess.

My team finished second on 83, behind the winners’ 91.  These weren’t out of 100 though.  Several of the rounds had 11 questions, many of them had multi-part answers (worth a point each and a bonus awarded to any team who got all) and the picture round had 22. Truth be told, I don’t know what the potential full score was!

Read Full Post »