APPLAUSE
Asking the questions, Jeremy Paxman.
Hello. Tonight, we begin
the infernal cancan
of the quarterfinals.
The 130 or so teams who apply
to compete in this contest were
whittled down to 28
who actually appeared on screen,
and, after two rounds
of competition,
only the best eight
of those remain.
Now, to get to
the semifinal stage,
the rules demand that a team
must win two quarterfinal matches,
so a team winning two matches
goes straight through,
a team that loses two matches
goes straight home
and a team that wins one match
but loses another must play again
and win in order to
stay in the competition.
And from now on, the questions
also get a little harder.
Now, in their first-round match,
Wolfson College, Cambridge beat
the School of Oriental and African
Studies on a tie-break question
and a final score of 185 to 175.
Their second-round match
was a Cambridge derby against
Jesus College, which they won by
a wider margin - 225 points to 140.
Let's meet the Wolfson team
for the third time.
Hi. My name is Justin Yang,
I'm from Vancouver, Canada and I'm
studying for a PhD in public
health and primary care.
Hi. I'm Ben Chaudhri, I'm from
near Cockermouth in Cumbria and
I'm studying natural sciences.
And this is their captain.
Hi. My name is Eric Monkman,
I'm from Oakville, Canada,
and I'm studying for an MPhil
in economics.
Hi. I'm Paul Cosgrove from
Cookstown in Northern Ireland,
and I'm studying for
a master's in nuclear energy.
APPLAUSE
The team from Balliol College,
Oxford, arrived here by
steam-rollering
Imperial College, London,
by 220 points to 55 in round one
and by beating Robinson College,
Cambridge with another
convincing margin -
210 to 90 points - in round two.
Let's meet the Balliol team again.
Hi. I'm Freddy Potts, I'm from
Newcastle and I'm reading history.
Hello. I'm Jacob Lloyd,
I'm from London
and I'm reading for
a DPhil in English.
And this is their captain. Hi.
I'm Joey Goldman, I'm from London
and I'm reading
philosophy and theology.
Hi. I'm Ben Pope, I'm from Sydney
and I'm doing a DPhil
in astrophysics.
APPLAUSE
OK, you all know the rules,
so let's get on with it.
Fingers on the buzzers.
Here's your first starter for ten.
"It is not a turning loose of
emotion but an escape from emotion.
"It is not the expression
of personality..."
John Keats.
No. You lose five points.
"..but an escape from personality."
Those words from TS Eliot's
The Sacred Wood describe
what form of literature?
Poetry?
Correct.
APPLAUSE
You get a set of bonuses
on boys' names, Wolfson.
The surname of the Elizabethan
author of the sonnet sequence
Astrophil And Stella, what given
name did Charles Dickens popularise
by using it for one of the principal
characters in A Tale Of Two Cities?
Sidney? Sidney.
Sidney.
Correct.
Which name grew in popularity
as a given name in recognition of
the admiral who led
the victorious British fleet
at the Battle of the Saintes
in the West Indies in 1782?
Nelson? Yeah, Nelson?
Nelson or Horatio. Nelson.
Nelson?
No, it was Rodney.
And finally, which given name
is believed to have come into
fashion in recognition of
the military leader who became
Baron of Plassey in 1762?
Clive? Don't know.
Clive?
Correct, yes. Ten points for this.
APPLAUSE
Which decade saw the birth
in Northampton of Anne Bradstreet,
who became one of the first
women settlers to write poetry in
the American colonies?
The same decade also saw
the death of Shakespeare
and the publication of
the King James Bible.
16...00s.
No. I'm afraid you lose five points.
1610s.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
Right, Balliol College, your bonuses
this time are on a shared term.
Coined in 1930 for an indefinable
element that sets something
or someone apart, what term is also
a colloquial expression referring
to those aspects of military life
that have no civilian equivalent?
Something that sets someone apart...
Corps d'esprit? Esprit de corps.
Esprit de corps?
No, it's X factor.
What letter precedes
"factor" when meaning
a measure of the quality
of performance of
a resonant system,
indicating its ability to produce
a large output
at the resonant frequency?
Q.
Correct.
What letter precedes "factor" in the
quantity used in the calculation of
the ratio of the angular momentum
of a subatomic particle to its
magnetic moment in the presence
of spin-orbit coupling?
I'm not sure. Should we go J?
We'll go for the J factor.
No, it's G. Ten points for this.
Give two terms as soon
as your name is called.
When describing points on an orbit
around a celestial body, the
terms "perihelion" and "aphelion"
are used when the body is the sun.
What two terms are used
when the body is the...?
Periapsis and apoapsis.
No. I'm afraid you lose five points.
..when the body is the earth?
Perigee and apogee.
Correct. Here are your bonuses.
APPLAUSE
They're on artistic
depictions of hell.
What modern name is given to
the triptych by Hieronymus Bosch
depicting the Garden of Eden,
scenes of orgiastic fantasy and
the torment of the damned in hell?
It's Garden Of Earthly Delights.
Garden Of Earthly Delights?
Correct. Inspired by Dante,
which French sculptor created
The Gates Of Hell,
a monumental work he failed to
complete before his death in 1917?
It is Rodin. It is.
Rodin.
Correct.
Which French printmaker's works
include wood-engraved
illustrations for an 1861 edition
of Dante's Inferno?
Dore. Was that Dore? Dore.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
Ten points for this.
A quasi-Latinism based
on the Latin for "when"
and an Anglicisation of the French
for "what shall I say of it?" are
suggestions for
the derivation of what word,
meaning "a perplexing
situation or dilemma"?
Quandary.
Quandary is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Your bonuses this time,
Wolfson, are on geography.
In each case, name the parallel
of latitude that passes through
or close to the following locations.
All three parallels end with a zero.
Firstly, Houston, Texas,
Cairo, Egypt,
Multan in Pakistan
and Lhasa in Tibet.
Is it 30? 30 or 40. I would say 30.
30? North or south?
Degrees north.
Correct, yes.
Secondly, the Great Sandy Desert,
the Great Barrier Reef,
the Atacama Desert and the
northern part of the Namib Desert.
10 degrees south? Do you think it's
further than that? I don't know.
20 or 10?
20? 20?
20 south?
Correct.
And finally, Guadalajara in Mexico,
Santiago de Cuba,
Puri in eastern India
and Chiang Rai in Thailand.
10 north, maybe? Are you sure?
No, I think it's 10 north. OK.
10 north?
No, it's 20 degrees north.
We're going to take a picture round.
For your picture starter,
you'll see a map of Europe.
For ten points,
I simply want you to identify
the major city that's marked on it.
Geneva?
Nope.
Basel.
Basel is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
Basel's position on the River Rhine,
as you know, makes it the
so-called "Port of Switzerland",
the country's only cargo port.
For your picture bonuses,
you're going to see the locations
of three more
inland commercial ports.
Five points for each city you can
identify. Firstly for five...
That's Belgium, isn't it?
Yeah, that's Belgium. OK.
Inland ports? Liege?
Liege?
Liege is correct.
Secondly, this city,
the world's largest inland port.
That's Lubeck.
That's on the coast.
Hamburg? Dortmund...
Hannover, Stuttgart...
Hannover.
No, it's Duisburg. And finally...
Seville.
Seville.
Correct. Ten points for this.
APPLAUSE
The Meursault Investigation
by the Algerian author Kamel Daoud
won the Goncourt First Novel Prize
in 2015.
It imagines the story of
the murder victim on the beach...
The Stranger by Albert Camus.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
Right, your bonuses this time
are on the film director
Jane Campion, Balliol.
Jane Campion won an Academy Award
for Best Original Screenplay
for which 1993 film,
set mainly in New Zealand?
Could be Heavenly Creatures.
Heavenly Creatures.
No, it was The Piano.
Starring Nicole Kidman as Isabel
Archer, which 1996 film, directed
by Campion, is an adaptation
of a novel by Henry James?
The Portrait Of A Lady.
Correct. The romance between
John Keats and Fanny Brawne
is the subject of which 2009 film
directed by Campion?
Bright Star.
Correct. Ten points for this.
APPLAUSE
Name two of the three domains
in the classification of living
things proposed in 19...
Archea and...eukaryote.
Very good. Well done, yes.
APPLAUSE
..proposed by the US microbiologist
Carl Woese, based on RNA analysis.
So you get the set of bonuses.
They are on Europe in
the early 11th century, Wolfson.
The Byzantine emperor Basil II
is noted for his conquest of
which Balkan empire?
It shares its name with a present-
day country of south-eastern Europe.
Is it the Croatian Empire?
Croatian? Or Transylvania.
Transylvania's not a country.
I'd say maybe Croatia, maybe.
Croatia.
Bulgaria.
Secondly, in the early 11th century,
Sancho the Great established
hegemony over most of Christian
Spain. Which kingdom did he rule?
It shares its name with
the present-day capital of Navarre.
Navarre? Erm... Aragon. Yeah?
Aragon.
No, it's Pamplona.
Along with Malcolm of Scotland,
Owen the Bald defeated the English
at Carham in 1016.
Which kingdom did he rule?
Its name refers to a Scottish river.
The...Clyde? Clyde? Clyde?
Clyde?
No, it's Strathclyde.
Ten points for this.
The name of what generic type
of songbird results if the past
tense of the verb "do" is pronounced
with its consonants unvoiced?
Tit.
Tit is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
You get a set of bonuses
on the collection of the Museum of
Modern Art in New York, Balliol.
Man With A Guitar
and Landscape At La Ciotat
are early-20th-century works
by which French artist?
Could be Monet. Cezanne?
Cezanne sounds better to me.
Cezanne.
No, they're by Braque.
The Dream and The Sleeping Gypsy
are works by which French artist,
born in 1844?
Henri Rousseau.
Correct.
The Dance and Landscape At Collioure
are works by which artist,
who died at Nice in 1954?
Matisse.
Correct. Ten points for this.
APPLAUSE
In which novel of 1903
does the widowed Mrs Newsome hear
troubling rumours of
her son Chadwick's love...?
The Age Of Innocence?
No. You lose five points.
..her son Chadwick's love life
in Paris and sends her fiance,
Lambert Strether, to persuade him
to return to America?
It shares its title
with a double portrait
by Hans Holbein the Younger.
The Ambassadors?
Correct.
APPLAUSE
These bonuses, Wolfson,
are on medicine.
What is the six-letter
medical term for
a network of nerves
or blood vessels?
Ganglia? Erm... Six letters?
Bundle? Bundle, yeah.
Bundle?
No, it's plexus.
Secondly, what name is given
to the plexus of nerves that runs
from the spine through the axillas?
It innervates the arms and hands.
Solar?
Solar?
No, it's the brachial plexus.
Located in the ventricles
of the brain,
which plexuses of blood vessels
secrete cerebrospinal fluid?
Is it, like, the interior plexus?
Ulterior? Yeah, go for it.
Ulterior plexus?
No, they're choroid plexuses.
Right, we're going to take
a music round now.
For your music starter, you'll hear
a piece of classical music.
Ten points if you can identify
the Austrian composer.
MUSIC PLAYS
# ..Kummerling... #
Schubert?
Schubert is right. His Prometheus.
APPLAUSE
That was one of many musical
settings of poems by Goethe.
Your music bonuses are three more
classical pieces inspired by Goethe.
In each case, for the five points,
I want you to identify the composer.
Firstly for five,
this German composer.
MUSIC PLAYS
Beethoven?
Beethoven?
No, that was Mendelssohn,
inspired by Goethe's poem
Calm Sea And Prosperous Voyage.
Secondly, the French composer
of this opera.
MUSIC PLAYS
I would say Bizet.
Who knows? Is it, er...
Goethe was Faust, right? So Gounod?
Gounod?
No, it's Massenet,
his Werther from Goethe's
The Sorrows Of Young Werther.
And finally,
another French composer.
MUSIC PLAYS
This is, erm...
The Sorcerer's Apprentice,
which is by whom? It's by, er...
Saint-Saens?
Canet or something. I don't know.
Go for that.
Canet.
No, it was Dukas.
You did get the right piece, though,
it was The Sorcerer's Apprentice.
Right, ten points for this.
"An extraordinary affair.
"I gave them their orders, and they
wanted to stay and discuss them."
Who said that after his first...?
George Orwell?
No. You lose five points.
Who said that after his first
Cabinet meeting as Prime Minister?
His time in office saw
Catholic emancipation in 1829.
The Duke of Wellington?
Correct.
APPLAUSE
Wolfson, these bonuses
are on sorrow in Shakespeare.
In each case, name the stage work
in which the following appear.
"Give sorrow words;
the grief that does not speak
"Whispers the o'er-fraught heart,
and bids it break."
Is that Ophelia?
The character who says it,
or the work?
We have to say the play...
Hamlet, maybe?
Hamlet?
No, it's Malcolm in Macbeth.
I'm just looking for
the name of the work.
"This grief is crown'd
with consolation.
"Your old smock brings forth
a new petticoat:
"and, indeed, the tears
live in an onion
"that should water this sorrow."
Richard II, maybe?
I was going to say King Lear.
OK, we'll say King Lear, then.
King Lear?
No, it's Antony And Cleopatra.
Enobarbus.
And finally, "A countenance
more in sorrow than in anger."
Is that Hamlet? Maybe Hamlet.
Hamlet?
It is Hamlet. Horatio's
description of the ghost.
APPLAUSE
Right, ten points for this.
"A perennial gale
"of creative destruction..."
Schumpeter?
No. You lose five points.
You get the rest of it, Balliol.
"A perennial gale of creative
destruction" - these words by the
Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter
refer to what broad economic system?
Capitalism.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
Your bonuses are on
a shared surname, Balliol.
Taking On The World, Race Against
Time and Full Circle are accounts
by which record-breaking English
sailor of her voyages and races?
Ellen MacArthur? Yeah.
MacArthur.
Ellen MacArthur is correct.
Widely used to extract
gold from ores,
the MacArthur-Forrest process
uses which extremely poisonous
compound, after which
it's more commonly named?
Mercury something? Cyanide?
Cyanide. Correct.
From 1945, the US general
Douglas MacArthur headed the Allied
occupation administration of
which country, introducing...?
Japan.
That's correct. Ten points for this.
APPLAUSE
What short word links a heraldic
beast with horns and tusks,
an Ivy League university
and the inventor of the compact
cylinder pin-tumbler lock?
Yale?
Yale is right.
APPLAUSE
Get these bonuses, you'll take
the lead. They're on civil wars.
Firstly, in which Mediterranean
country did US-backed
government forces defeat
communist insurgents in 1949?
Greece.
The war had begun shortly after
the Axis occupation ended in 1944.
Greece.
Correct.
La Violencia is the name given
to the years of civil war in
which South American country,
sparked by the assassination of
the liberal leader Gaitan in 1948?
That's a very Colombian name.
Colombia.
Correct.
In which African country did
civil war break out in 1967,
shortly after the secession of
the eastern region states under
the name of the Republic of Biafra?
Nigeria.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
Ten points for this.
Dating to the early 20th century,
the Aarne-Thompson system classifies
what general category of narrative?
The Austrian-born
psychologist Bruno Bettel...
Myths?
No, I don't think so.
The Austrian-born psychologist
Bruno Bettelheim explored its
meaning and significance in the 1976
work The Uses of Enchantment.
Fairy tales.
Fairy tales or folk tales
is correct, yes.
APPLAUSE
And you've lost five points,
of course, Balliol.
So you're no longer in the lead.
OK, Wolfson, football in
the 19th century for your bonuses.
The Football League was formed
in 1888 with 12 clubs.
Which Lancashire club were champions
in the first two seasons?
I don't know this. Burnley?
I don't even know the geography.
I don't know.
Burnley? I don't know. OK.
Nominate Chaudhri.
Burnley?
No, it's Preston North End.
Secondly, during the
Football League's first decade,
two clubs won the championship
three times. Name either one.
In the 2015/2016 season,
both played in the Premier League.
No idea. Newcastle and...
Arsenal?
Nominate Cosgrove.
Are you serious?
Newcastle and Arsenal?
No, it was Sunderland and Aston
Villa. I only needed one of them.
Oh! But you didn't get either.
In 1893, Small Heath became
the first champions of the
Second Division. By what name
is the club now known?
It doesn't...
I don't know.
Pick a random club.
Arsenal.
No, it's Birmingham City.
We're going to take
a second picture round.
For your picture starter,
you're going to see a painting.
Ten points if you can
identify the artist.
Er, Turner?
No.
Caspar David Friedrich.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
That painting uses the compositional
device of the Ruckenfigur,
a foregrounded figure seen
from behind contemplating
the view in front of them.
Your picture bonuses are three more
works that use that device.
In each case, I simply want you
to identify the artist.
Firstly for five...
Munch.
That is Edvard Munch,
Young Girl On A Jetty.
Secondly, this Italian artist.
Boccioni, maybe?
Boccioni?
Correct. And finally...
Magritte.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
Right, you've retaken the lead.
So, we get another starter question
now. Fingers on the buzzers.
In the human genetic code,
how many distinct codon combinations
is it possible to form,
each one consisting of a triplet
of the four nucleotide bases?
24.
Anyone like to buzz from Wolfson?
61.
No, it's 64.
Ten points for this.
What name denotes the form of
theatre influenced by symbolism
and surrealism that was developed in
the 1930s by the French dramatist,
poet and actor Anton...?
Absurd.
No. You lose five points.
..dramatist, poet and actor
Antonin Artaud?
Theatre of the Absurd?
No, it's Theatre of Cruelty.
Ten points for this.
Which of Snow White's seven dwarfs
is known in Latin as Sternuens,
in Spanish as Mucoso
and in French as Atchoum?
Sneezy?
Yes!
APPLAUSE
You could retake the lead
if you get these bonuses, Wolfson.
They're on inorganic chemistry.
Which non-metal has more allotropic
forms than any other element?
Probably carbon. Sulphur.
Carbon. I would say sulphur.
Sulphur? Or phosphorus.
Well, chemists, tell me. What do you
want? Go sulphur. OK, sulphur.
Sulphur?
Sulphur is correct.
What precise term is given to salts
that contain the S2O32 minus ion?
Sulphite? It's a di-,
it's two sulphurs, though.
Disulphite?
Two sulphurs. OK.
Nominate Cosgrove.
Er, nominate Chaudhri.
Disulphite?
No, they're thiosulphates.
And finally, in photographic
processing, sodium thiosulphate
is used to remove unreduced silver
from negatives and prints.
What is that process called?
It's reducing...
I don't know. Finishing?
It might be reducing.
Is it the iodine process?
I don't think it involves iodine.
I would say finishing.
Finishing?
No, fixing. Three minutes to go.
Another starter question.
In which book of the New Testament
do these words appear?
"He maketh his sun to rise
on the evil and on the good
"and sendeth rain on the just
and on the unjust."
Revelation?
No. Anyone want to buzz
from Balliol?
Romans.
No, it's Matthew.
Ten points for this.
Born in Vienna in 1900,
who was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Physics in 1945 for his discovery
of the exclusion principle?
Wolfgang Pauli.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
Your bonuses are on Unesco
World Heritage Sites in China.
In which province are both
the temple and cemetery of
Confucius and Mount Tai,
one of the five sacred mountains
in traditional China?
I think that's, like... Zhejiang?
Zhejiang? I think it's, like, Henan
or something. I have no idea.
Henan?
No, it's Shandong.
In which autonomous region,
secondly,
is the site of Xanadu, the summer
capital of Kublai Khan from 1274?
Is it Tibet? Shanghai or something?
Name an autonomous region.
Oh, a Mongolian autonomous region?
Inner Mongolia? Yeah...
Inner Mongolia?
Correct.
In which province are
the giant-panda sanctuaries
and the giant Buddha of Leshan?
Sichuan.
Correct. Ten points for this.
APPLAUSE
"I do not want people
to be very agreeable,
"as it saves me the trouble
of liking them a great deal."
Which author wrote those words
in a letter of December 1798 to
her sister Cassandra?
Austen?
Jane Austen is right.
APPLAUSE
Your bonuses this time,
Wolfson, are on insects.
Insects such as mayflies and
grasshoppers differ from beetles
and ants in that their metamorphosis
does not include which stage?
Larva? Do they not have larvae?
They have nymphs.
Do they have pupae?
I don't think they have larvae.
No larvae. OK.
Come on. Larvae?
No, it's the pupal stage.
From the Latin meaning
"form" or "likeness",
what general term
is used to indicate
a stage in the development
of an insect between two moults?
An example is the nymph
or larval stage.
Instar, I think.
OK. Nominate Chaudhri.
Instar?
Correct.
What term is commonly applied
to the nymph stage in aquatic
species such as dragonflies?
It's also used for a water nymph
in Greek mythology.
Is it hydra?
Naiad? Yeah, I think that's it.
Nominate Yang.
Er, naiad?
Naiad is correct.
APPLAUSE
Ten points for
this starter question.
Written while its author
was studying in London,
the 1938 anthropological work
Facing Mount Kenya...
Jomo Kenyatta.
Correct.
APPLAUSE
You get a set of bonuses this time
on place names, Balliol.
Which republic consists of
half of one of the Lesser Sunda
Islands and has a name
that literally means "east east"?
Timor-Leste. East Timor.
Correct. Which country is sometimes
said to derive its name from
a word meaning "west"?
It formally became a republic
on Easter Monday in 1949.
Kiribas.
No, it's Ireland or Eire.
The Arabic name of which
North African country...?
GONG
And at the gong...
APPLAUSE
..Balliol College, Oxford have 135,
but Wolfson College,
Cambridge have 165.
So you're going to have to come back
and win twice now to go through,
Balliol, but, you know,
you're a pretty strong team and you
were in the lead
for much of that match.
Wolfson, many congratulations.
Imagine knowing Sneezy!
How terribly useful!
I hope you can join us next time
for another quarterfinal match.
But until then, it is goodbye
from Balliol College, Oxford...
ALL: Goodbye.
..from Wolfson College, Cambridge...
ALL: Goodbye.
..and it's goodbye from me. Goodbye.
APPLAUSE
