Trivia Quiz Season 1 & 2

FULL STANDINGS AND FULL REPORT MAY  2012

As most all of you now know, the Ministry of Truth laid down the law to emerge as the winner of the overall contest. The Big Stone Heads gave them a rough time for the first rounds but eventually they pulled away to win by 9 points.

The second place teams (Living Daylights and Thistle Rocks) tied at 256 and the “playoff” went to The Thistle team. Cashew (a two person outfit) had only one team member for the final night and pulled their team to a 4th place finish out of the more than 40 teams who competed during the 2011-2012 campaign. The Dewey Decibels    and Hotel de Ville squad were tied for 5th and 6th and The City Hall outfit won their “playoff”.                                                                       

The Ministry and The Big Stone Heads tied for the May title and I will need a reminder as to who got the win by the number game so as to give proper credit. With all of the playoff rounds, I do not remember with certainty. I think it was the Stoners but let me know. Living Daylights pulled off the only “10”score of the night in the last round to come in third for May. Thistle Rocks was 4th with Hotel de Ville and as I recall the Hoteliers won the playoff but I might be wrong. Very close finishes.

The full standings will appear at the end of this document but let me say that I hope everyone had a good time and I appreciate that there were very few “challenges” to the Chair. What was brought forward was reasonable and there were a few “corrections” to the scores. I look forward to next season. For the teams that did not come in first --- the phrase attributed to the Brooklyn Dodger fans holds –“Wait until next year”.

For the first question (T/F), all but 4 teams knew (or guessed) that Jell-O actually had a nearly flavour of celery and cola. Disturbingly, over half the teams thought that Nixon labelled the “food”              as

the “official dessert of the USA”. Only 4 knew the “Out     of Africa” theme and the following were suggested - Dances with Wolves, Gone with the Wind, Avatar, Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, Thorn Birds, Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and “Some Disney Flick”. Somewhat more than half knew Tammy Wynette’s signature song.                                         

Fifteen of the twenty teams knew that Diet Coke floats but the teams were split exactly as to the fact that the sugar in a “regular” Coke causes it to sink in water so maybe guesswork dominated.

Only four teams did not know that the ancient city of Troy was in Turkey. An impressive number of teams (Space Cadets, the Ministry, 21 and Over, the Pythons, the Dewey folks, the Living   

Daylights, Thistle Rocks, Date Night and The Heat is On) knew that month, silver and purple did not rhyme with any other words. The House was perfectly split on which ear Van Gogh cut off (only part really) and many knew one or more of Elton John’s real names although the Spuds suggested “Bernie”.                                                           

In Round 3, Grace Kelly was identified but Shirley Temple was suggested by a few and she did not pass away at age of 52 ; she just turned 84. Many knew that paedophobia was fear of children but some suggested fear of feet - not to unreasonable. No team knew the assist leader of the Habs (Pete Mahovlich) and no team knew the “truck” as the flag pole top although finial was allowed and a few got that. Almost all knew Hank Williams Jr.

The fourth round showed no team knew Hamilton had a birth control clinic 1931. Every team knew John Travolta’s role in Pulp Fiction and many knew the Flatiron Building but Ctrl-Alt-Del suggested a “press iron” and the Internationals wrote “Gridiron”. The music for “Top Gun” was very well answered. Positive Vibrations, One Night Only and Thistle Rocks knew that Judy     

Garland’s birth name was “Gumm” and Cashew said “Mudd”. Close -- but RR was missing from his team and might have pulled this one out of the mudd.

In Round 5, THIRTEEN groups knew what was in a “Flaming Moe”. Disturbing.  NO team knew the name of the Mars ship (Curiosity) and many great names were proposed for the answer including, The Freedom Machine, Opportunity, Rover, Matt, Leo, Serenity, Bradbury, Sedma, Explorer, Expedition, Charlie, This Side Up, Perspicacity, Red, Pathfinder and the best I think was Marzipan. Everyone knew that Kevin Costner was the male lead in The Bodyguard.

Round 6 saw Date Night and the Dewey squad identify the armhole as a scye. Good going. Only The Spuds and the Ministry knew the shape of the Wankel engine as triangular. The last round revealed the popularity of the Simpson’s and their entry cloud. Six teams did not know that fructose could be converted to fat in the liver - a reason to avoid high fructose corn syrup. To finish off, only the Living Day lights and the Craniacs knew that Scrambled Eggs was the working title for “Yesterday” by the Beatles.

The success rate varied   over the season more than I thought it would with a low of 46% in January (cold brains) to a high of 71% in March (our hottest month to date).

The overall average team score was almost 60% (59%). Needless to say, the Ministry answered at an impressive 73% average.

Here are all the numbers.

March 2012 Report

Trivia players must have studied over the cold February nights as the highest group average yet was obtained at an impressive 63%.  To date, the four events show an average correct score at 55%.  The following are some observations of this quite good night.

There were two perfect rounds noted in different rounds--by The Living Daylights and the Space Cadets.  All questions were answered by some team with one exception – no team knew the favourite cartoon character of the previous President of North Korea (Daffy Duck) –- just as well.

Round 1 was well done by many teams and all but two teams counted up the knuckles of the hand at 14 with the lone error being 15 on the high side and one error on the low end with 5.  Three groups knew that the Habs only had one home loss in the 1976-77 season at 1 and they were Cashew, Thistle Rock and 21 and Over.  Elvis’ middle name was suggested as Gustav and Shirley.  Surely Pandemonium knew it wasn’t that- perhaps they were thinking of the Leslie Nielson line in “Airplane”.  Most knew there were 7 Roman characters and several showed off by writing “VII”.

Round 2 was also well done as most knew the Little Mermaid but one team said the statue was the “Little Dutch Boy”- yikes!.  Every team knew Sacha Baron Cohen- maybe it pays to have three names or to have seen “Borat”.  Only two teams knew what book followed “Little Women” (Living Daylights and The Internationals) and two suggested “Big Women”.  Most knew that the goat was the source of cashmere and all but one team knew that Nobel invented dynamite and not the steam engine.  Nine teams knew John Calvin as the Huguenots’ leader.

Round 3 showed that the cat with no tail (Manx) was known by many although one inventive team suggested “Tomcat the Tailless”.  Nearly 80% connected on the colour red for the missing one in the scheme for the Afghanistan flag although it was probably guessing.  The Police’s biggest hit was a split between “Every Breath You Take” and “Roxanne” and most knew the Latin name for the plant that delivers tea – or guessed it which was a very reasonable thing to have done.

Round 4 may have been clouded a bit by the music malfunction we had when Jimi Hendrix’s piece was confused by the knowledgeable group, Hotel de Ville who suggested it was by Segovia.  Sorry about that.

There were TV watchers in the House as all but three got “Parks and Recreation” and all but one knew “The Boss” and that one team did not catch the question that it was the nickname of the singer of the music piece (Bruce Springsteen).

Round 5 revealed an impressive 8 teams who knew that gymnophobia meant fear of nudity—hmmmm.

Only 2 teams missed the music of Fantasia although one of the two knew the title of the piece as opposed to the name of the movie.  All knew Ronald Reagan played a Nazi in a movie—I guess that was way too easy although I thought it interesting and it was very difficult to dredge up the photo.  Several teams knew about “Nanook of the North” and a few knew Cinderella’s real name.

Only a few teams knew the Canadian “inventions” of Superman and the roller paint device.  Just over half knew that the dollar sign ($) was on the “4” on the keyboard.  Who pays attention to that?  That was impressive as far as I was concerned.  Not many knew that Christine Lagarde was the new head of the IMF and some still thought it was Strauss-Kahn.  “Struthio camelus” was recognized as the ostrich by 21 and Over, Living Daylights, the Dewey team from the library, the Big Stone Heads, One Night Only, Secret Society and the Craniacs while one team thought it was the hummingbird.  Most got Marilyn Monroe although one group picked Mae West (born 1893)—that would have meant that Playboy magazine was started in the 30s or earlier.

The last round was fairly well done although more time needs to be spent on geography as only 4 groups knew that Brazil was on the north border of Bolivia.  Not so many knew the names of all of the rabbits and one group suggested the names Tom, Peter, Paul and Tim- almost a musical group from the 60s.  Another team suggested Roger, Larry, Peter and Nigel.  What was that about?  Fifteen groups have members who knew the Metro (station Peel) and all but one knew whales feed milk to their young and not krill.  Fortunately ABBA has not passed into the past as every team knew they were from Sweden.

What follows is the full scorecard as far as it is known.  I believe that there may be some teams listed that have morphed into other names.  Please correct this with an email to me.  It seems that there have been a total of 43 teams participating with the usual evening having nearly 30 each time.

The leader board has a new feature and that is the far right column that shows the point total given our rule that the lowest score will be deducted in order to give more teams a shot at first prize.  You will note that while the Ministry of Truth has made the most correct answers over Living Daylights (196-195), the slow start of Living Daylights (deduction of their round 1) has thrust them into the overall lead 155 to 153 with Thistle Rocks, Cashew, the Dewey Decibels and Hotel de Ville within striking distance as we go into the last two events on April 18 (Wednesday) and May 3 (Thursday).  The roster below suggests that there are 24 teams who have completed 3 or 4 rounds so if there is an error in the team names, please let me know.  Also, sign up now if you are able to make that last two events.

Finally, please feel free to send a memo suggesting improvements in the contest.  The main idea is to have fun and overall we should be able to deliver well over $2000 to Centraide.

January, 2012 Report

January saw a resumption of Trivia activities and the lowest group average to date.  Up to now most of the evenings have been fairly consistent with about a 52% group average for all questions.  Our January competition had a 45% correct answer rate perhaps signifying too long a holiday period.  In any event, there were some interesting observations that were gleaned from an examination at the individual team score sheets.

Each of the rounds averaged a bit below 5/10 with Round 1 revealing that all but 2 of the 28 teams realized that 5 was the maximum number of Xs that could be used in tic-tac-toe. About half knew that Marion was John Wayne’s first name and one group suggested Florence Janet.  Thank you for playing.  Interestingly only one group knew that “O Canada” was made official in 1980 and most knew that “Plastics” was what was suggested in “The Graduate” as a career.

In Round 2, only 5 groups got the required 4 sports that had a big start from McGill and almost all knew one of the 11 Oscar winner movies.  Only one team  (21 and Over) knew one of the three American schools that were started from a graduate of Edinburgh.

Round 3 showed a dismal performance with only a 3.2/10 score for the assembled.  Seven of the twenty eight teams knew Joe Clark was the youngest elected PM and while several knew that “LOTI”meant “Laughing On The Inside”, interesting alternatives were “Lost On The Internet”, “Last Off The Island” and “Less Of The Insults”.  Six got ethylene as the correct plant hormone although the Otto Maass contingent tried a different gas- it must have been the beer.  Most all knew that tomatoes were not part of the equation for New England Clam Chowder and seven knew that it was Dr. Frankenstein who was leaving the room to evade the “monster”. Only Martlet 1 knew that Stephen Leacock quipped the line about men, every once and a while needing to go out and shoot something and here, Charlton Heston was suggested as the author; not an unreasonable assumption considering his views.

Round 4 saw only one group, the every expressive Full Monty Pythons (not showing the Full Monty –yet) knowing that it was the brothers Phoenix who had nominations for an Oscar.  One group (unnamed) suggested the Baldwin brothers.  Thank you for playing.  Perhaps the most well-answered question of the night was the one about the voice of Woody in “Toy Story”.  It was answered correctly by 26/28.  Only one team came close to a definition of “deliciate” (to indulge).

In Round 5, only two groups knew you could go from Canada to Mexico via three states. Three groups knew that “lubritorium” meant a place to lubricate one’s car—garage, gas station etc.  Only two groups identified “dactylography” as a study of fingerprinting.

An interesting result in Round 6 showed that 15/28 knew that 18 was the youngest age for a PM while the same number knew that 35 years was the youngest age for a President in the US.  One group knew about Lithuania exiting the USSR in 1991 although there were many reasonable answers such as Ukraine, other Baltic states and Georgia.

The last round revealed that 25/28 knew what a “Shirley Temple” is.  Many knew the Mayor of Casterbridge and the dressware of Bela Lugosi when he died.  However, The Big Stone Heads and the Living Daylights were the only two who knew that there are 20 “I”s in Roman Numeral clocks and watches.  Finally, 22/28 identified the dulcet tones of Barry White.  Unfortunately, in my opinion, that was his only good song so we will have to wait some time for a possible repeat of “My Everything”.

You are invited to the next event on March 20, and subsequent nights- April 18 and May 24.  As you can see below, the Ministry of Truth has a strong lead but they were not first for the first time in several events.

You are charged with keeping your names from here on in- there have been over 80 named teams over the last year and a half with several of these changing their labels from time to time. If the listing shows the same team with two different names, let me know and it will be corrected.  Finally, as we will drop the lowest monthly score for the final tally, there are presently 28 teams who can finish with a full slate of five total events and challenge the Ministry.  It will be too difficult a challenge with only one score to date to be fully competitive but please do not stop playing as participation is the main point of this event. 

STANDINGS THROUGH THE JANUARY GAME

The Faculty Club Centraide Trivia Quiz Season 2

After two rounds, the Ministry of Truth dominates but there are several others in close pursuit. In the contest on November 22, The Ministry of Truth came up with their 6^th consecutive victory obtaining a 77% correct score.  The 30-team group average went up considerably from the mid-50% level to 61%.  The overall average for all 8 sessions is now 54%.

One team of two to watch is the Date Night couple that were only beaten by 6 of the 30 teams in November and now place 7^th overall for the Fall events.  Big Stone Heads improved dramatically going from 29 correct in October to 49 in November.

Unfortunately, no team knew Lou Gehrig’s first name (Henry) and eight teams suggested “Aloysius”.  Perhaps the association with the proper acronym for “Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS) stimulated this answer.  For the question where the answer was “American Pie”, 29/30 got it right.  For who was “His Royal Shyness”?, only 5 got that one while most everyone else said it was his father.

No one knew that Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president to be born in a hospital.  Many indicated JFK and Roosevelt with one vote for Washington.  Only three teams missed the fact that there are 7 NHL hockey teams in Canada and our visitors from Idaho are excused for saying only 4.  Finally, no team recognized the Packard car but all suggested the names of very high-priced vehicles.

Perhaps the question with the most unusual answers was the one asking about what was interesting about the Canadian major league baseball player who was called “Twinkeltoes” (this had nothing to do with the question and was due to the way he ran on the balls of his feet) and that clouded the more important trivia fact that he replaced Babe Ruth in the Yankee outfield.  Some answers were “11 toes”,  “six fingers”, “played with no shoes”, “had no toes”, “was a midget”, and “was the first black player”.

On January 24th (Tuesday) the first of four remaining Trivia nights will be held.  Please register early. Have an excellent holiday and we will see you in the New Year.

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