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The King William's College 2004 Quiz

Posted by michael on from the you-fail-it dept.

A UK college creates an annual quiz for their students. Here's the Questions and Answers from a previous year, if you want to get an idea of just what sort of esoterica you're seeking.

8 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Do Europeans Know this stuff? by mccalli · · Score: 2, Informative
    Speaking as a UK resident, I can pretty confidently say that....no, we haven't a clue about all that stuff. I can say this with great confidence, having dismally failed at the similarly-themed BBC quiz University Challenge for decades now. That link is to a search, not the homepage. Just read some of the comments about failing spectacularly...

    Cheers,
    Ian

  2. Re:You know you are screwed... by bc90021 · · Score: 3, Informative

    It means:

    "To know where you can find anything, that in short is the largest part of learning."

    Three years of Latin + a confirmation by Google. ;)

    --
    libertarianswag.com
  3. Historical Background by kf6auf · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is another Guardian article with some more information about the quiz, as opposed to the quiz itself, which is ridiculously hard. It tells a bit about the author (quizmaster) of the quiz and other bits of useful information like the fact that they take the quiz once before winter break and then once after winter break after having some time to prepare responses using any means available (including the Internet, which is one reason it has gotten harder in recent years -- the author wants to make sure that google is all but useless).

    Anyway, I'd hate to have to take one of these, and the last thing I want to do over break is look up 180 obscure questions.

  4. King William's College is NOT in the UK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    The college is a public (in British sense) school on the Isle of Man - which lies in the middle of the Irish Sea and is not part of the UK

    1. Re:King William's College is NOT in the UK by temojen · · Score: 3, Informative

      For those not in the UK, "public school" means what "private school" means everywhere else.

    2. Re:King William's College is NOT in the UK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Actually it is - by public these schools meant they were open to all (+ thus usually needed to be boarding schools) as opposed to the local schools (usually called grammar schools) that required pupils to come from a certain town - prior to free education acts in the 19th century all pupils had to pay for education though some charity schools did offer free education to the poor

  5. FYI by Lproven · · Score: 5, Informative

    It freaks me out every time I see a mention of that online. It's the school I used to go to - indeed right now I'm only a few miles away, back on the Isle of Man for the holidays. We used to have to do that quiz every year and we all hated it!

    Anyway, some information...

    [1] KWC is not a 'college', really, despite its name. It's a primary and secondary boarding and school, these days, for boys and girls. (When I started there, it was male-only.)

    [2] It's in the Isle of Man on the outskirts of the town of Castletown and the village of Ballasalla. This means it is not in the UK, strictly: the Isle of Man is an independant protectorate of the British crown. The Manx Tynwald is the oldest government in the world - 1,025 years of continuous rule.

    --
    Liam P. ~ "Intelligence is a lethal mutation." (me)
  6. The college *NOT* the UK! by Alioth · · Score: 2, Informative

    King William's college is NOT in the UK! It's in the Isle of Man, which is neither part of the UK nor part of the European Union.

    Since we're talking about my home (and a general knowledge quiz that eminates from there) I thought I ought to point this out.

    --
    Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows