For the first time in 10 seasons, I (Henrik Mølgaard) returned as the question maker of a season. A lot of new players have joined the game during the last 20 weeks so for many of you it was a new experience. So how was it? Well, that is a little tricky to answer, because we have temporarily disabled the ratings, so I will run through the questions of the season in a little more detail than I usually do, or at least have done for some time. This will also give the newcomers a glance behind the curtain. When I make a set of questions, I give each question a hard-o-meter setting. The hard-o-meter is my guess at how many percent of the participating quizzers will answer the question correctly. That means that the lower the hard-o-meter setting, the more difficult the question is. I use the hard-o-meter, because it is the compas by which I try to make a balanced season (difficulty wise) - my goal is for the average hard-o-meter to land on 50 or a little below. The other reason why I have the hard-o-meter is that it trains me in knowing how difficult questions actually are. I know this by comparing the hard-o-meter with the actual difficulty of the questions. In order for you to have the best understanding of this, I will give you the entire season’s topics, day for day, the hard-o-meter for each question and the actual difficulty. The season was as follows:
Quite a few of you have commented that the season starts off with very easy questions – too easy questions. And as you can see, that is on purpose. The hard-o-meter of the first three days almost exactly matched the actual difficulty. I have made the first questions so easy, because I have learned that having medium level questions at the beginning will discourage a good deal of players from even starting the season. On the other hand, if they get two or three points on the leaderboard at the beginning, then they will keep on playing for most of the season.
As the season continues, the questions should (on average) get progressively more difficult and the last two questions should be the hardest of the season. I did not succeed completely with that this season, as the Bertelsmann question on day 6 turned out to be a lot more difficult than I predicted and Hu Jintao on the other hand was easier than I expected. However, the average difficulty of the season actually landed on 49, which was what the hard-o-meter was set to.
There are two extra things I need to take into special consideration when I make a set of questions. 1) All seven top level categories should be represented in the set at least once and there should be at least two questions between the same top level category, and 2) the questions should be spread geographically, so the majority of the questions do not have content from the same area (Europe for instance). I try to take all these things into consideration, when making a set for a season. Sometimes a set is easier or more difficult than I expected, other times it turns out that the questions I made is tilting towards one geographical region, but that is how I make the sets. Hopefully, through this small introduction, you have a little better understanding of why the questions are as they are.
And now to the thing this post is really about. Who won the season? As you can see from the tables above, there were no really difficult questions (difficulty below 10). But almost all of you took one, two or more missteps during the season and the wrong answers were spread out more or less evenly during the second week of the season. There was no “killer question” that ruined everybody’s perfect season this time.
But three quizzers did manage to go through the entire season without missing a single question. Anant, Indika and Tony all got that perfect season, so we had to have a tie-break. This time the topic was playable characters in Mario Kart Wii. Indika chose not to participate in the Tie-break so it was down to Anant and Tony. Anant did an amazing job by naming 22 of the 26 possible characters. Unfortunately for him, the favorite pastime of the Moore household is to... yes, you guessed it... play Mario Kart Wii. Therefore, Tony was able to come up with all 26 characters, which I guess makes his season double perfect. I don’t know how you compete against that. But many have failed before as this is Tony’s 18th championship. I have already used up all my words trying to describe how amazing Tony’s level of knowledge is, so all I can really say is... congratulations, please give him a big round of applause! Tie-Break Breakdown: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IrTdYrS61GQCoin11Otg2czI8IewKG-8lC_q4Rb7pyw/edit?usp=sharing
The answers to the final three days of the season are: _________________________
Question of the day quiz – Season 111 - Day 12 of 14 Category: The Nobel Prize in Literature In 1913, this Bengali poet, composer and philosopher became the first non-European to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems: India's "Jana Gana Mana" and Bangladesh's "Amar Shonar Bangla", and the Sri Lankan national anthem is inspired by his work. What is the name of the Bard of Bengal?
Answer: Rabindranath Tagore
_________________________
Question of the day quiz – Season 111 - Day 13 of 14 Category: Scientists This American agronomist (1914-2009) is known as "the father of the Green Revolution". During the mid-20th century, the scientist developed and introduced semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties to Mexico, Pakistan and India. Through his efforts he is credited with saving over a billion people from starvation and in 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. What is the name of this largely "Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity?"
Answer: Norman Ernest Borlaug
_________________________
Question of the day quiz – Season 111 - Day 14 of 14 Category: Chinese Politics I In 2012 Xi Jinping became one of the world's most powerful men, when he was elected to serve as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, a position he still holds today (as of 2020). His predecessor was elected in 2002 and was in office for ten years. What was his name?
Answer: Hu Jintao __________
Hall of Fame
Tony Moore 18 (Season 111) Laruchka Budelinik 8 (Season 85) Dan Palethorpe 7 (Season 79) Allie Livesley 7 (Season 87) Mette Mølgaard Pedersen 6 (Season 14) Sisira Mark Anthony 6 (Season 89) Duncan McDonald 5 (Season 105) Jens Andersen 4 (Season 107) Kathryn Hutchinson 4 (Season 108) Sarah Jane Bodell 3 (Season 84) John Robinson 3 (Season 104) Dorian Willems 3 (Season 110) Morten Mølgaard Pedersen 2 (Season 4) Jonas Ravn 2 (Season 15) Nick Cuthbert 2 (Season 21) Remi Nikolai Nissen 2 (Season 23) Adrian Allen 2 (Season 32) Michael Clark 2 (Season 37) Bjarke Hansen Christensen 2 (Season 70) Kasper Fuhlendorff 2 (Season 72) Isuru Anuradha 2 (Season 88) Bob Thompson 2 (Season 96) Ananthakrishnan Harikrishnan 2 (Season 98) Ida Rud 1 (Season 9) Troels Leth 1 (Season 13) Inge Støttrup 1 (Season 16) Karen Friis Clausager 1 (Season 26) Andy Rowe 1 (Season 27) Tine Kristensen 1 (Season 33) Andrew John 1 (Season 34) Franz Eichhorn 1 (Season 46) Thomas Kolåsæter 1 (Season 52) Chris Grandison 1 (Season 64) Mads Theodorsen 1 (Season 92) Bastian Fischer 1 (Season 94) Bob Douglas 1 (Season 102) Rishabh Gupta 1 (Season 103) Sander van der Heyden 1 (Season 109)