University Challenge: Imperial thrashes Lincoln College

Imperial has progressed to the third round of University Challenge, after coasting to victory against Lincoln College, Oxford.

The team of Lee, Jones, Haddad and Debnath scored 250 points to Lincoln’s 120, exhibiting their knowledge on topics ranging from Jacobean tragedies to 20th-century West African politics.

‘On so many of those starter questions, you guys pounced, but just a fraction too late,’ host Amol Rajan told a deflated Lincoln team, expressing his condolences.

‘It’s amazing how much you know about non-science subjects, given what you guys are studying,’ he chuckled to Imperial.

Test Yourself

Imperial’s team got all of the following questions (and more!) correct on their way to beating Lincoln. How well can you do?

1. Having a short, curved blade with a sickle-like protrusion, harpe was used by which mythological hero to decapitate the Gorgon Medusa?

2. Pithecanthropus Erectus is a musical interpretation of the history of human evolution, written by which jazz composer?

3. Name either of the two Norse sagas that are sources for the life of Gudrid the Far-Travelled, born in the late 10th century, and described as “the Viking woman who sailed to America and walked to Rome.” One saga is named after a Norwegian explorer, the other after settlers of a large island.

4. From 1892, the organisation known as Katipunan opposed colonial rule in which present-day country? It declared independence from Spain 1898.

5. Name either of the West African political leaders who in 1957, made a ten-year wager as to whether one of the gradualist policies of one would be more effective than the transformationalist policies of the other. One would remain in power until 1993, while the other was ousted in a 1966 coup, in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana respectively.

Answers!

1. Perseus, 2. Charles Mingus, Answers: 3. Saga of the Greenlanders/Saga of Erik the Red, 4. Philippines, 5. Kwame Nkrumah/Félix Houphouët-Boigny