World Quizzing Championships

I have been desperate to take part in the World Quizzing Championships, which is an annual event originating in the UK, but now taking place simultaneously in 20 odd countries. It is probably the most difficult test of trivia and knowledge of its kind. I was privileged to take part in last year's UK leg (which took place over the weekend before my final exam paper) and I ranked 180th or so among the 450 plus people who took part.

Taking part in the World Quizzing Championships is really quite a masochistic experience. There are eight categories in total: Culture, Entertainment, Media, Lifestyle, History, Science, Sport & Games and World with 30 questions per category. You have one hour to complete 4 cateogories and a further hour to complete the other 4 categories. That means you have around 30 seconds per question (including reading time) which really isn't a lot of time. The category with the lowest score gets dropped.

Just in case you were wondering, the questions are not easy. You really have to think to get the answer for some of them though they are for the most part generally quite fair. To get even 20 out of 30 for a single category is really quite difficult unless you are an exceptionally good quizzer. Last year, I failed to reach 15 in any of the categories though I did score a 14 and three 12s. This given that I am considered a general knowledge buff by almost everyone I know. Then again, what other kind of person would subject themselves to this kind of torture?

I had heard that there the World Quizzing Championships leg being organized in Singapore which would allow me to take part and was really disappointed when this completely failed to materialise. Thankfully, the organisers decided to allow me to do the quiz individually, by sending the questions directly to an appointed moderator. Hopefully, I can do better than next year. My rought target is to try and attain a score of 100 after managing only 81 last year.

Update: I eventually took the quiz and managed to score close to 100 though I didn't officially submit my results to the organizers.