How are the people on University Challenge so knowledgeable?

That makes sense now.



And if you know neither of these three things (like me) then you're kinda stuck, aren't you?



One question I must ask - how do they retain the information they read in books (or is it something that comes naturally)? There's been many times where I've read books and I've forgotten who wrote it, let alone what was in the book itself.

well it helps if you're interested in the first place. If you can't remember who wrote a book you've just read you probably weren't very interested in that book.

Second you embed facts in stories, the fact about the redesign of paris is organically embedded in lots of stories; the story of the history of paris, or the story of the development of town planning... Or if you're interested in nazis it would be embedded in the story of hitler and albert speer being jealous of paris and trying to recreate that sort of triumphal architecture themselves.

Memory champions construct stories to enable them to remember random lists, shuffled decks of cards etc. There was a guy explaining this on the royal institution christmas lecture fwiw but there's loads of books and I dare say all over the internet.

The point is the uc contestants will have picked up knowledge learning the story of jfk, or the story of town planning, or the story of albert speer or the story of the history of paris. They won't have memorised that information as a standalone random unconnected fact...

Except that trimble woman a few years ago, she could probably memorise a phone book.

They don't watch university challenge, or any form of tv for that matter; their time being directed to higher forms of entertainment... like reading.

But seriously if you watch university challenge, the all round genius types are quite rare. Usually the people on the team know a lot about a given subject, be it music or science or literature. The teams have a science guy, a literature guy etc to cover the diferent questions that could arise. So I guess each individual must have very specialised interests-ie. visiting art galleries or listening to classical symphonies which over time manifests into a good knowledge of a single subject.

The all-round genius types that seem to know everything are rarer and have probably devoted a significant proportion of their time to studies.

I find the answers I know, not many of them know, if you get what I mean...

I mean there was a simple Economics starter question with the answer being 'balance of payments', none of em got it. Even GCSE economics students would have got that question.

Yet there's be some quote from some seemingly obscure philosopher's book and they'll all get it.

It really depends on what their subject interests are, and they also read a lot. It's why they generally do badly in things like 'popular music' for example, when many average people would get them by just watching TV.

man, I really hope I get onto a university challenge team when I start uni

I looked it up and it sounds good.


Then I saw they had an 8m budget with only 1m return
OH ****!


Still, great reviews, I'll see it tomorrow.

I find the answers I know, not many of them know, if you get what I mean...

I mean there was a simple Economics starter question with the answer being 'balance of payments', none of em got it. Even GCSE economics students would have got that question.

Yet there's be some quote from some seemingly obscure philosopher's book and they'll all get it.

It really depends on what their subject interests are, and they also read a lot. It's why they generally do badly in things like 'popular music' for example, when many average people would get them by just watching TV.

man, I really hope I get onto a university challenge team when I start uni

[as an individual it would have to be mastermind]

Exactly, the mathematics questions you don't need a maths degree to know. They tend to be either A-level syllabus or terminology like perfect numbers etc. The questions don't appear to be chosen by a mathematician, as they often refer to obscure and unimportant terms that you wouldn't know unless you google them.

I will try a bit hard to get into the team Instant high level of popularity if

TBH the subject ones are not always as hard as they seem

I get the maths ones (almost) without fail

Then my daughter gets the history ones, I am pretty good with lit and some music, the better half rocks at science generally and can have a good stab at the geography ones

There are some obscure things that none of us know

Good job it is a team game

[as an individual it would have to be mastermind]

Do you and your daughter have competitions whilst watching UC?

Of course, don't all families?

lol I bet the UC geeks are well popular

but I find I do get a handful of the questions, so I do hope I get in

As someone who's done UC, it's got sod all to do with intelligence. It's just about being a sponge for information and having a faster than normal recall.

Still, I'm quite impressed. It's still a handy thing to be able to take in vast amounts of information.

Meh. It's better in pub quizzes; wins you beer.