This is Justin. Between the filming of episodes, I took the time to visit my family, brush up on my studies and avoid coffee like the plague. This was perhaps our strongest challenge yet, but I’m glad to have recovered sufficiently to face a powerful Manchester team! Thank you all for watching, and have a brilliant Lunar New Year!
The fact that Imperial had their toughest challenge till now yet they scored 200+ shows how incredible they are. They kept their minds cool and slowly took the lead. A wonderful team effort! For the first time I heard the host telling both the teams that there is plenty of time.
As a British expat living in Tennessee I was unreasonably excited when that question about states that border 8 other states came up. I was screaming Tennessee at the TV, but alas, neither team heard me
Thanks again, CosmicPumpkin! It was like three matches in one...an early blowout, then a tight match, then a blowout the other way. The winning team is the prohibitive favorites at this point IMO. While they've been less dominating than usual in their last two matches, it's because their competition is so much stronger than earlier. I'm not a betting man, but I'd be tempted to bet large on this match's winning team to win it all. No shame in losing to them. My best to both teams and each individual.
Good job on not spoiling the result in your comment my man. Frankly, I can't see anyone beating the winners as I feel like these are the two strongest teams in the competition
I do like how appropriate it is that the Imperial team features four members from current and former parts of the British Empire. Hong Kong, Canada, India and England.
@@jayguerero47 Yes, that meaning I did know, but according to Wiktionary 'conferment' can also mean 'The act of conferring', in which case it was not wrong. en.wiktionary.org/wiki/conferment
Debnath comes up clutch always with Maths questions. Jones wasn't at his best this episode, but I'm sure he'll come back strong. Imperial is the team to beat
I still think the finals will be University College London vs. Imperial, the ladder being led by the very formidable Lee and Jones. Jones bears a resemblance to Oscar Wilde.
@@pathina7 No he didn't. He rarely had to confer with Max Zeng because Max would just give the answer straight away if he knew it, and they had hardly any overlap in specialisms. He conferred with Fatima Sheriff on literature because they're both good at that, but that didn't come up particularly often. The reason he conferred most with Gilbert Jackson is because they had the most overlap in specialisms (art, classical music, physical science), and therefore the most need to confer on questions. He wasn't ignoring the team, he was conferring with the right people at the right time.
It wasn't a matter of conferring with- it was the matter of turning his head and just ignoring them completely. And the fact that more than a few other people commented on this is testimony on the issue. And again, why on earth out of all the many many captains would someone with this issue be singled out for lauding? And again, why only criticise this female captain with a non western surname? "The weakest link"?@@gooscarguitar
Thank you as always for doing a fantastic job with the statistics. A few other observations: 19 rounds (18 rounds completed; the starter and first bonus questions were asked in the 19th round before the game ended) 28 starter questions (19 answered correctly, plus an additional 9 starter questions which neither side got right) 55 bonus questions (18 rounds x 3, plus the first bonus question in the 19th round) 83 questions asked in total (28 starter + 55 bonus) 555 points available in total (28 x10, plus 55 x 5) 58.6% of the 555 points available were answered correctly ((205 + 120)/555) Imperial 36.9% of the total points available answered correctly (205/555) Manchester 21.6% of the total points available answered correctly (120/555)
It was a wonderful episode, it is a pleasure to see these intelligent young people showing their intelligence and culture. Many many thanks CP for bringing us these videos. Cheers from the hot and rainy Belem (Amazon, Brazil).
Thanks, Cosmic P! I had expected a tight match and it certainly started out that way, then Manchester seemed to wither under the Imperial juggernaut! Would not be surprised to see Manchester win their second attempt, though, to make it into the next round.
Kind of felt like Amol strolled through the researchers' room before this one and threw in a couple of ideas for questions he'd like to read. Looked good on him.
Well, you would, wouldn't you, here you are in the belly of the beast-- which you're about to ride -- who could resist throwing in a topic or two? As this is the first time its seems that A.A.'s fingerprints are visible, maybe it was in this episode he really cut loose. However, expect he will follow in Old Paxo's anonomous footprints -- rather than embrace the vibrant VCM approach.@@Ramboost007
That was neck and neck until Lee showed up and absolutely tore through the questions. Manchester did quite well but Imperial are just unbelievably strong here.
8:40 With Pele right in the middle of the picture, the guesses of 2002 and 1994 were hilarious. They picked the only two World Cup finals featuring Brazil that didn't feature Pele
Worried before the match this might be a slaughter; losers actually were ahead for the majority of the game, and actually got their best bonus performance of 12/18, along with keeping their I believe unique record among the QF'ists with no penalties yet. The winners eventually soared off - still backing them for the title but less sure after this performance - 18/37 on bonuses is actually their worst to date, but we'll see what happens ;).
I enjoyed that. Two strong teams that got to show off some of their strengths, plus the comfort of seeing a bunch of brilliant youths perform similarly to me on sports questions.
After a slow start out of the gate, Imperial finds its footing with standout *Justin Lee’s* answers to all three questions about 삼국유사 [Samguk Yusa] [Heritage of the Three Kingdoms] 12:34, ties the score, and then never looks back. Lee performs a similar hat trick regarding pragmatic sanctions in European history 18:42 and when asked to name _either_ of the only languages that are both members of the Austroasiatic family and are national languages 26:43, he handily and nonchalantly names _both._ Overall, he beats out Adam Jones as this match’s MVP. (Avoiding coffee works, apparently.) Adam Jones and Sourajit Debnath do their share of helping to rack up points and Suraiya Haddad provides her usual “crisp” leadership. Imperial manages to score almost double the number of starter points that Manchester does (115 to 60)-and that’s even counting three incorrect starter interruptions resulting in a 15-point penalty. And, even though their success rate in answering bonus questions is, surprisingly, a bit less than three-quarters that of Manchester’s,⭑ it doesn’t matter because Imperial gets to answer more than double the questions. Manchester is, obviously, a great team but Imperial is like a perfectly timed, well-oiled, highly efficient machine when it gets going-all the team members are fully engaged; they listen to each other, waste no time, and, above all, really know their stuff. ⭑h/t @lindorsibande’s match stats.
We all know that UC is the ancestral home of the obscure question [duh!], but there were a few too many questions that left both teams flat-footed. Some of them were so convoluted, that even when new Paxman had finished asking the question nobody had a clue what he meant. And most of the teams had barely been born when the mullet-headed Warne was playing, so his disdain for their answers was misplaced.
Definitely watch these quizzes to learn: Today, I learned that Birmingham have their own Floozie in a Jacuzzi. My question: Is the sculpture from before or after 1988? My uncle sculpted Anna Livia, Dublin's Floozie, which was designed as a recumbant, feminine, pre-Xtian figure. And she's been replaced by a metal spike.
Hearing the phrase, immediately thought of Dublin. Seem to remember a woman semi-submerged in the middle of the O'Connell bridge. According to Wikipedia, the Birmingham one is from 1994.
One of the most amusing threads of this series so far has been De Los Reyes-White failing to get any of the questions on LGBTQ/CRT etc. correct, despite all the badges displayed on his hat.
As always, there's someone shouting an answer... in my case again as a Chilean (and here, everything is football) 1970 !!!!! (It has Pelé on it, damn!, why those answers?!?!?!). xD. BTW, is it just me or Haddad was kinda off this day?. =(
I agree. Those answers were literally out of the ball park and restored my self confidence that I am just as smart as those whizz kids on certain subjects.
I think there was not a single one I knew that they were struggling with? No wait; I was repeating Lech Walesa while both teams whiffed, understandably though. You don't really see his image or hear him talked about for the past few decades, and neither team had an old person on it. I did see the Pele and not understand their guesses, but I didn't know the correct year myself. I was guessing '66 or '70.
@@charlesclark3840 In future references, remember, 66 was the Germany v/s England where 'till the end of the world, there will still be the controversy about a 101' minute England goal that Germans swear it didn't fully crossed the line. =P
My children all gained good BSc and MSc degrees, successful in their respective chosen careers and very capable in their fields, but never have anywhere near this breadth of knowledge displayed by UC contestants. This becomes evident when we play trivia games at Christmas! At 74, I have a head full of useless old bollocks that sometimes surfaces to answer an obscure question that arises here yelling the answer and startling the dogs...but not often!
Quizmaster appears very scathing about the Warne cricket question not being known. Unnecessary for him to do that, just because he happens to know the answer.
I love how all through the competition she smiles encouragingly at the team mate who gets the answer right. I think shhe's the best captain I've ever seen on UC. OK, she's ridiculously pretty too.
Such areas of knowledge are often as obscure as the complex mathematical ones - for some teams ! Also bear in mind that the show must also be entertaining, and so not just be impossible and erudite questions about 17th century philosophers and chemical reactions.
@@trilliarobinson7862 I get your point. But, for me, the subject of football is hardly entertaining. I must say,too, that the questions seemed uncommonly arcane. Some years back I could answer more than a few. Now, not one! Maybe it’s just my age…
The one about a catalyst seemed strangely simple, compared to the really obscure mathematical ones preceeding. Expecting this generation of students to know about football 30-50 years ago did seem pretty unlikely too. Ho hum. @@renzo6490
Bloody slow down, Rajan. Perrhaps he wants to bring a measure of excitement and urgency, but he almost jabbers much of the time. Neither Gascoigne nor Paxman carried on in such a manner.
How is it that almost each time after Rajan says “plenty of time, X”, X hits the buzzer and gets the starter right? Perhaps a question favoring team X is displayed on Rajan’s screen? 10’20” in this episode and many other examples. That’s why I liked Paxman’s cards so much more: no room for manipulation.
Sure he did but that could not have been followed by him reading a question favoring that team. How can we know that this isn’t the case here? Each of these teams participated thrice before, you don’t any AI crap to pick a question favoring one team and disfavoring the other
