Keeping score on our King William's Quiz solvathon

February 14, 2014 5:28 AM

A December tradition around here is taking a collective whack at the King William's College General Knowledge Paper (or Quiz). The answers have been published, so we can have a look at how we did. Here's our solvathon discussion. Our answers were recorded in this Google Doc created by rewil. I have now added to that, as Column C, the official answers as released by the college (PDF). (Guardian link for same.) On the Google Doc, our answers are in Col. D. Red shading indicates our wrong answers, of which there are 14, out of 180. So we got a 92.2. (You might quibble with a few of the official answers, though.)
posted by beagle to MetaFilter-Related at 5:28 AM (13 comments total)

Well, dang. I was just fixing the headings on that Google Doc, and suddenly it disappeared. Now I'm getting a server error when trying to access it. Anybody else having this problem?
posted by beagle at 5:39 AM on February 14, 2014

OK, it's back. Phew. I'm not touching it again.
posted by beagle at 5:45 AM on February 14, 2014

Congratulations - nice score!
posted by the quidnunc kid at 5:55 AM on February 14, 2014

Oh, awesome follow-up, beagle!

Yay, us!
posted by rewil at 7:07 AM on February 14, 2014

Wow, what a tough test! Yay for the resident geniuses!

I got the "feelings with difficulty smother" one, at least, because it's from Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance, "A policeman's lot is not an happy one!"

I need to fire that playlist up again. I listen to Pirates along with some of my favorites from HMS Pinafore, the best bits from The Mikado, The Sorcerer's, "My name is John Wellington Wells" and "I have a song to sing, oh!" from Yeoman of the Guard sometimes when I am running around doing mundane errands. Either those or my Les Mis stuff.

What. I'm not the only one who dramatically sings along to lavish musical productions while driving around town, am I?

Anyone?
posted by misha at 10:21 AM on February 14, 2014

I am totally with you, misha. What's more, I do it in a Miata, where the world can see and hear. :)
posted by blurker at 10:45 AM on February 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

Christ in a bucket, how did y'all end up figuring out the Isle Of Man Railway Locomotives bit?
posted by this is a thing at 5:26 PM on February 14, 2014

All credit for the Isle of Man railroads section goes to noble lurker Mike Bath, of Manchester, who knew there was often an IoM section in the quiz.
posted by rewil at 6:04 PM on February 14, 2014

Wild. I spent a few hours poking at some of those questions and threw up my hands in complete bafflement. Props to noble lurker Mike Bath of Manchester!
posted by this is a thing at 6:08 PM on February 14, 2014

Well now he just has to change his username to Noble Lurker Mike Bath of Manchester.
posted by Kabanos at 7:41 PM on February 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

It's the place in Manchester where they bathe the microphones that are reserved for noble lurkers to use.
posted by this is a thing at 7:47 PM on February 14, 2014

Well now he just has to change his username to Noble Lurker Mike Bath of Manchester.

I would donate to this Kickstarter.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:00 AM on February 15, 2014

Re Indian Subcontinent:

3. who died playing polo on the Tiger’s 11th birthday?

Iftikhar Ali Khan is the 8th Nawab of Pataudi; Nawab's a hereditary title. So the Mefi answer is correct, just more specific than the official one.
posted by divabat at 10:35 PM on February 15, 2014