The King William’s College General Knowledge Quiz

By Minnesotastan in Everything Else on Dec 23, 2009 at 9:51 am

King William's CollegeArguably the most challenging test of arcane knowledge is the “Christmas Quiz” offered to students at King William’s College.

Up until 1999, pupils at King William’s College would sit the paper unseen on the last day of term before the Christmas holidays.  The questions are very hard and often cryptic, and pupils got hardly any questions right first time: five percent was considered a good score! During the Christmas holidays, pupils tried to find the answers to the harder questions by consulting reference books or asking clever relatives. When they returned to school in the New Year, they took the test again, under exam conditions and without the aid of notes.

Questions are grouped into 18 “themes,” each consisting of 10 questions.  Here, for example, is the 15th theme:

Who or What…

1 is perifoveal?

2 is bridged by a memorial to Pepi?

3 was a notoriously cruel Wallachian prince?

4 overlooks the burial ground of Anne, Catherine and Jane?

5 was thought, through its bite, to cause an extreme impulse to dance?

6 was a probable tuberculous infection, so named after a breeding sow?

7 is an abnormal passage connecting two epithelial surfaces?

8 broken bone is associated with an unspoken wish?

9 was Linné’s name for the sea parrot?

10 is the Hill of the Fords?

The entire quiz has been published at The Guardian.  Previous quizzes (with answers) are available via the King William’s College website.  Answers to this year’s quiz will be available after the holidays.

Have a go.

Update:  The answers to these 10 questions are in the comments.  Remember there are 170 more (and harder) questions at the link.


Email This Post
Tweet This Post 
Share This Post on Facebook

Tags: ,

Neat stuff from the NeatoShop:

  1. Greg from CA
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 11:00 am

    Number 3 is Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the Impaler, but I have NO idea on the others…

  2. Skipweasel
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 11:13 am

    Perifoveal probably means “around the fovea” – the fovea is the sensitive spot in the middle of your retina.

    Pepi, IIRC was an Egyptian prince – might be something around the pyramids or the Nile.

    Yup, the prince was Vlad, sometimes known as Dracul. Did things like nail turbans onto heads of people who wouldn’t remove them in his presence.

    Anne, Catherine and Jane sound like wives of Henry VIII, but I didn’t think they were buried near each other. Two were – probably in Windsor so it’ll be the chapel in the castle I guess.

    The tarantula spider gave its name to the tarantella dance.

    The abnormal passage sounds like a fistula.

    Broken bone is presumably the wish-bone.

    The Linnean name for the puffin is sea-parrot? but that’s a guess.

    No idea where or what the Hill of Fords is.

  3. Minnesotastan
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 12:08 pm

    The “theme” of this set of questions is that all the answers end in “–a” as in Dracula, tarantula, fistula…

    Keep going…

  4. Skipweasel
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 12:28 pm

    Minnesotastan – now why didn’t I spot that? Perhaps my mind’s too highly tuned.

    That’s make the wishbone a furcula – which only came to mind after I’d posted the first lot. Wish the latin name for a puffin would come to mind – but as you say, it probably ends in “a”.

    I could cheat and FWSE for it.

  5. NeonCat
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 1:02 pm

    I like to think I am pretty good at trivia. I guess I’m just not good enough. Ken Jennings, where are you when we need you?

  6. Minnesotastan
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 2:04 pm

    The area around the fovea in the retina is the macula, and the “breeding sow” reference is to “scrofula” – a tuberculous infection of the lymph nodes of the neck.

    But now I’m done. Someone else can hit the books or the ‘net for the other answers.

  7. Alex
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    Don’t know about the rest, but #5 is definitely the zombie of Michael Jackson. Most definitely.

  8. Thomas
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 2:41 pm

    Looking at the answers, they don’t all just end in -a, but -ula.

  9. Austin
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 3:24 pm

    Number 9 – Puffins belong to the genus Fratercula.

  10. Austin
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 3:26 pm

    Number 10 – The island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides is sometimes called Hill of the Fords.

  11. Jack da Bomb
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 3:31 pm

    Fratercula is the puffin genus.

    Benbecula, one of the islands of the Outer Hebrides, is sometimes called the Hill of the Fords.

  12. Jack da Bomb
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 3:32 pm

    Austin, how’d you do that?

  13. Austin
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 3:35 pm

    Number 4 – Three queens – Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey – were buried at Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula.

  14. Deb
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 4:11 pm

    #9 is Fratercula, the genus of the puffin

  15. Minnesotastan
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 5:04 pm

    I would bet that #2 is the Vistula, and that the “Pepi” is not the Egyptian pharaoh, but the ?Polish horse of that name – but I can’t find any confirmation.

  16. Minnesotastan
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 5:06 pm

    Or else it’s a bridge over the Vistula commemorating Prince Józef Antoni Poniatowski – “Prince Pepi (so called from the Czech diminutive form of Joseph.”

  17. Achilles GT
    Dec 23rd, 2009 at 5:22 pm

    #2 is the Vistula (Pepi was the nickname of Józef Antoni Poniatowski)

  18. Daniel Rendall
    Dec 25th, 2009 at 11:03 am

    Please, if you’re going to publish these things, don’t allow comments on them. Otherwise they start showing up in Google search results and spoil the fun for those of us who like a challenge (and also for the kids at the school for whom this is a serious exercise)

  19. ted
    Dec 25th, 2009 at 12:18 pm

    Daniel, don’t get mad at the comments if you’re worried about the challenge. How much of a challenge is it to use Google, anyway?

  20. eap_minster
    Dec 26th, 2009 at 5:58 pm

    1:10 is the pH measurement of acid/alkali, a negative logarthimic meaurement of hydrogen ions. The anniversery is mentioned on the Carlsberh website

  21. eap_minster
    Dec 26th, 2009 at 6:14 pm

    18:4 is the false blood capsule bought from a joke shop in Lavender Hill and used by a rugby player (can’t remeber the name) in a game at the Harlequins ground in Langhorn Drive

  22. eap_minster
    Dec 26th, 2009 at 6:32 pm

    Section 6 is to do with “bread” I think:
    6:6 is Breadfruit (on the Bounty)
    6:7 is “Breadbasket of Europe”
    6:10 is Naan

  23. archieb
    Dec 27th, 2009 at 1:19 pm

    Several boards are discussing this. If you’re interested, among the most complete sets of possible answers are those on:
    http://www.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=17494&postdays=0&postorder=asc& start=510
    and
    http://network.laxpower.com/laxforum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=38303&p=6715 88#p671588


Keep track of the comments with Comment RSS

Don't Miss: New Stuff | Bestsellers | The Cute Store
                   Funny T-Shirts

Need a gift? Get unforgettable gifts for:
Geeks | Pranksters | Kids | Hipsters | Shutterbugs
Lijit Search
Old school? Bookmark us! RSS Feed Twitter Facebook Page