final of university challenge today -- corpus christi won, and it actually made the main news.

the main protagonist was gail trimble, she answered 2/3rds of all questions on her team of 4. ideally you need a mix, preferable a biology/medical specialist, someone who does languages/literature and the arts, probably 2 of them because of the greater weightage towards geenral knowledge, and a science/maths guy.

the guy from manchester uni was not too bad, i particularly enjoyed the question on violin concertos where they played excerpts.

anyway, on a day when slumdog millionaire wins 8 oscars, some spotlight on trivia competitions. the media focused on the "brains" of the team and that they don't get good press compared to say someone like jade goody. however, having participated myself, i don't think trivia competitions have much to do with intelligence at all... you just happen to read a lot and practice, it's all memory. that said, there were some calculation questions that pretty tricky: i.e. they would give you random elements and you're supposed to describe their shape on the periodic table, and some calculations involving large numbers where the quick way is to calculate an approximation. i don't think some of their nervousness/awkwardness helped.

the anagram/association questions were quite challenging too.

hmm... when's who wants to be a millionaire coming back to singapore? i swear i will participate this time.