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Once again, much of this review was written without access to the data that is here presented with it. So these predictions will be tested in real time.
Quick Stats for the Week
Seat Averages
Those averages look pretty okay to me, in as much as averages can be a good measure of anything. Seat 1 was musket-heavy, but not indicate of any imbalance.
Game Score Distribution
Clearly a harder set this week, since the number of top-scoring teams stayed level but the sub-40 group increased.
1. Chinese New Year
Setter: Vikas Plakkot
Lots of topical quads this week. The first of them was this foursome on the Chinese New Year.
Jade Emperor seemed like a familiar term to me, but others have opined that it's a challenging guess. I guess that's the thinking behind putting it at L4, but I think it might play closer to an L3.
Dragon Dance I'm sure must've played easier than Chinese New Year. People will see the words 'Chinese', 'puppet' and 'dance' together and just guess and get it right.
Floral decorations are a common part of Chinese New Year. Most flowers are acceptable to be used, covering about ten different types of prosperity, but one particular flower is not to be used (unless they're in red!) because they are associated with funeral rites and veneration of the dead. Which "golden" flower from the Asteraceae family is this that has major significance in Chinese culture and even more importance in surrounding regions?
Chrysanthemum is a reasonably difficult question, but some folks took issue with the word 'golden' being used in quotes (chrysos is the ancient Greek word for gold) and I have to agree. The quotes here are like the dreaded italics without actually being italics. They’re trying to give you a tangential clue, but that’s very different from the more typical use of quotation marks, that of indicating questionable aptness.
A nice example of a sentence that would make zero sense outside of quizzing 🤝
I think our leveling will probably be off for this quad.
2. Human Branding
Setter: Dhruv Mookerji
A morbid topic, but a surprisingly simple quad IMO. All questions will probably work fine as independent questions in pretty much any quiz, great for any audience.
Each of the questions even had part of the answer right there in the text, so even the guessing was well-directed.
Branding criminals was common practice in North America during the 16th and 17th centuries. Usually the letter representing the crime was branded on their skin. If A was for adulterers, D for drunkards, then what was T for? Appropriately, it would be branded on their hands.
Thieves, easy peasy.
In Ancient Roman times, runaway slaves who were caught would have FYG or FUG branded on their foreheads. This was a shortened form for a Latin word whose English form we are more familiar with. Which English word?
The question has both ‘runaway’ and ‘FUG’ in it, come on, you should’ve got that.
The branding of humans upon their skin has been a gruesome element of history. Until 1832 in France, a certain category of slaves, employed on the seas, were dehumanised further by having GAL branded on them. This was to ensure that owners could highlight their ownership of this important force of labour for their trade. Which word was GAL the shortened form of, the vessels upon which they were put to work?
You’d need to have heard of the Galley of course, but it’s an easy pull after that.
During the American Revolution, Loyalists to the Crown who were captured by Revolutionaries were often branded with the initials GR on their skin. The letters were the Royal Cipher - the official initials used by that ruler to sign documents. This form of official signing exists till today. What did the letters expand to?
George Rex is a sudden jump up to L4. Some players while answering were worried about it possibly being ‘Georgus Rex’ or something similar. Didn’t happen in any game I read, but I imagine I would’ve given points for that anyway. Latin form of the name etc.
Despite how individually easy I found these questions, I think they were still perfectly leveled. Fingers crossed for a perfect quad.
A perfect quad!
3. British Names of American Games
Setter: Dhruv Mookerji
Not an American game.
This Cluedo thing answered an old question of mine regarding why people have different names for the game. The game my family owned was presumably an American one, called simply Clue.
Clue is also the title of the 1985 movie adaptation, which famously had 3 different endings to resolve the case. The movie’s a bit of a drag so feel free to read the Wikipedia page instead. Always easier.
It surprised me too that we didn’t need a long list of alternate answers for Noughts and Crosses. It did feel tragic to not give points to the few folks who couldn’t think of the right name for a game they clearly remember. I had to mark someone wrong for “Xs and Crosses”, which is clearly a slip of the tongue, but still, you feel bad doing it.
Readers, did you have trouble evaluating Draughts as an answer because you didn’t know how it was pronounced? I certainly did. I mean I knew that draught as in “I feel a cool draught in the room” is pronounced like ‘draft’, and that drought as in “we’ve had a long drought without rain” is pronounced ‘drowt’, but I wasn’t sure if the game Draughts is pronounced like the breeze or the rainfall shortage. Apparently, it is the former. I wonder if anyone got (temporarily) marked wrong for using the correct pronunciation. Let us know in the comments if you did.
This is a hard quad to level, they seem pretty even to me. I have a hunch that Cluedo might’ve been easier than Wally, but it’s close. Draughts will certainly play the hardest.
🎯 Two Britishers, Clare Gratrex and Daniel Fullard, both scored a perfect 4/4 in this quad, their first musket of the season. For one of them, it’s not even the last musket of this set!
4. Oman in the 20th Century
Setter: Thejaswi Udupa
Someone mentioned in the feedback form this week that this was a “weirdly specific” quad, and I get what they mean. If you miss one question about Oman you probably think you’re going to miss all 4. But it’s a solid attempt at a Deep Quad (?) and for that I respect it.
Again, some took issue with the use of quotation marks for “Kingdom” when describing Saudi Arabia. Fortunately, there was other info in the question that helped, but I still think this will be hard for an L1, which ideally should be complete sitters.
Pakistan is a tough question to guess at, and the most the question allows is a guess. There was nothing in the question to confirm a line of thought.
Dhofar is my pick for the hardest question of the week.
If Dhofar seems a shocking pick for L2, don’t worry, that’s just a problem in the analysis. The real order was Muscat at L2 and Dhofar at L4. With that correction, this played alright, but Muscat was still easier than Saudi, which makes sense cos capitals are bread-and-butter for the geography folks.
🎯 Pranjal Agrawal scored an unlikely musket in this unusually challenging quad. This is genuinely one of the most impressive muskets we’ve ever seen in the league. Take a bow, sir.
5. Film to Musical to Film
Setter: Thejaswi Udupa
Sometimes you come across a List Quad topic that you just have to set immediately, cos who on earth would believe that there are 4 of these? 4 movies that became musicals that became musical movies.
Mean Girls is an okay L1 but could’ve used some more clueing aside from naming directors and producers. The addition of images to this quad was a late spurt of inspiration, which I think probably helped a lot with the Get Rate here.
The Color Purple is the one I knew was coming just from the quad name. The 2023 musical film has been in the news during the awards season, with Danielle Brooks being nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
I would guess Matilda would play harder than The Producers, for no reason other than that it’s a name, and names are harder to remember. Okay maybe one more reason, the image for Producers was perhaps slightly more indicative of that movie than the one used for Matilda.
Oooof, did not see that coming. Matilda played easier than the more topical Color Purple, and Producers was easily the hardest one. Good decision there, editors!
6. Pokemon Animal Inspirations
Setter: Debasmita Bhowmik
I was never very into Pokemon, I think I missed the craze somehow, but every question in this quad was framed to be a test of your animal love rather than your Pokemon trivia.
Gharial at L1 seems odd, but only till you see the other questions. After that it makes sense at L1.
The word gharial comes from ghara, an Indian claypot that the gharial’s snout bears a resemblance to.
Much like the animal they are based on, Zigzagoon is a cute and curious Pokemon with strong adaptability. The animal is native to East Asia, where they feature in folklore as mischievous tricksters and get part of their 2-word name from a North American animal because of their distinct body markings. Which canid?
The image will get you to raccoon, but how does a setter get you to guess ‘Raccoon Dog’? The usual setter spooning tricks were employed: ‘2 words’, the question said, and then threw in a ‘canid’ hoping you’d pick up on it. Canid, as in canine and Canis Major (‘the Great Dog’), is the Latin for dog. I think that’s actually adequate clueing, but for an L2 it might’ve been necessary to be really explicit about how to put the answer together. Something like “2 words in their name, the first from a North American animal…, and the second from the common name of a canid.” At that point, you could probably move it to L1.
Tapirs and Axolotl venture into deep animal-lover territory, but I would’ve guessed the latter would play easier.
Wrong on both counts. Axolotl was ever so slightly harder than Tapir, but neither was as hard as Racoon Dog, which was just too cryptic was an L2.
🎯 Nikhil Sonde breezed through this quad, with a perfect 4/4 musket.
7. Covers of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game
Setter: Harman Singh
Another quad brought to you by my partner Smriti, who caught me humming the song and asked which of the many covers I’d heard. “Everyone has covered it,” she said. “If you can find 4 big names, we have a quad,” I said. We googled. There were tons. Narrowing it down to 3 covers felt criminal.
Celine Dion was initially clued with “Identify this artist, who has released albums in both English and French,” which is a very creative way of nudging you towards Canada. During final editing however we felt it needed to be even easier, so we just told you up front that we were looking for a Canadian ‘queen of power ballads’.
The Chris Isaak original was always intended as an L2/3. Its more famous music video starring a topless Helena Christensen is so unnecessarily steamy and gratuitous that it made me uncomfortable just editing it. We decided to spare you the embarrassment of watching this video with strangers and used an alternate video in the question. I’ve attached the original above anyway, for educational purposes. You are welcome.
Tenacious D showed us the correct way to do a steamy beach shoot, with this grin-inducing video with wholesome golden retriever energy. Jack Black puts on a pretty epic vocal performance, especially in this live set.
R.E.M is admittedly a tough question since the audio is just too limited to really pick up on any cues. Some big fans did say that it’s just about identifiable as Michael Stipe’s voice though, and that’s enough for me.
Leveling seems about right. L1 and L4 are sure shots, but L2 and L3 will probably play close.
A very satisfying number of people pinged me this week saying the song had successfully been planted in their head. Here’s yet another cover for your viewing pleasure. ID this artist who paused a performance at the Hollywood Bowl to invite Chris Isaak onto the stage for a duet version of Wicked Game.
🎯 The song was successfully planted in the heads of Pinakpani Kashyap, Nitish Khadiya, and Benny Meyers, or perhaps it was already there, cos each of them got a perfect 4/4 score and scored a musket!
8. Recipes from feastofstarlight.com
Setter: Dhruv Mookerji
Very enjoyable quad on recipes from famous TV shows etc. If anyone is willing to mine this I’m sure you could make an entire Mimir friendly based entirely on recipes from that website.
Green Eggs and Ham is about as literal as a question (and a recipe) can get.
Edward Scissorhands had scissors hiding in plain sight in the image.
Downton Abbey suffers a little because of how many period dramas could plausibly contain spreads like the one shown in this question.
Better Call Saul was well-clued and probably easier than its intended L4 spot because of how big a deal the series finale was.
I think this could be a messy quad if L3 and L4 play easier than we intended.
Hmm, it is a messy quad, but not for the reasons I was expecting. Edward Scissorhands played hardest, the scissors in the image weren’t enough.
9. George Lois’ Esquire Covers
Setter: Vikas Plakkot
A classic quizzy quad, and I loved how each question was framed. Plenty to work with in all four.
“French” and “advance guard” and “art movement” should’ve been enough to get you to Avante-Garde, no excuses.
The Howard Hughes and Truman Capote questions both contained several hints for people who are at least a little familiar with their personas.
What Hath God Wrought is a bit of an intentional bouncer. Most will duck and watch it sail past, but a select few will happily hit it out of the ground. That’s right, I just used a cricket metaphor, high five ✋
Again, the L1 and L4 seem safe, but Hughes and Capote might play about even.
Nope, Capote played harder, and the quad gradient was fine.
🎯 Dan Burgess and Shashank Tyagi picked up muskets, and Benny Meyers picked up his second of the week!
10. Marvel Comic Couples
Setter: Vikas Plakkot
A topical quad that’s designed to be a bit of a gimme, which explains why either half of each couple was enough to fetch you a point. High get rates are expected for all 4 questions.
Wanda-Vision is an easy pick for L1, given their prominence in the MCU.
Jean Grey-Cyclops was a surprising choice for L4, given their prominence in the Sony X-Men movies. Expecting this to play much easier.
Daredevil-Elektra and Luke Cage-Jessica Jones are where things step up a bit, but each of these characters has had major TV shows made about them. Cage-Jones ranked harder in difficulty cos their shows were less successful, and also because the image used for Daredevil was fairly indicative.
See?
🎯 MCU fandom means a lot of muskets. Dhruv Sharma, Arpita Shetty, and Sandipan Goswami all got a perfect score, as did Clare Gratrex and Pinakpani Kashyap, both of whom scored two muskets in the same week!
11. Same Product, New Purpose
Setter: Rajat Gururaj
A classic quiz topic, to the point that some of these might seem like “old fundas” to the most experienced quizzers. Remember though, if the Get Rate isn’t 100% then it isn’t the funda that’s old, it’s you.
Many commercial products were initially created for a completely different purpose than what they are known for today. In 1957, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes invented this product as a form of 3D-textured wallpaper. There were no takers for that use but soon the invention was repurposed and was used in the shipping of the IBM 1401 series of computers in 1960. What product was thus born that is an addictive pastime for some?
I thought the framing here was still a little challenging, but the answer Bubble Wrap is very satisfying. Good question to ask your friends when you’re trying to introduce them to quizzing.
Listerine and Hair Loss are very even questions but asked in very different ways. The Listerine question tries you clue you to the product, then guess a brand name. The Propecia question doesn’t do much clueing at all but challenges you to recognize the brand name and guess the product.
Kotex recognizes its own difficulty as a question, simply telling you the product and asking you to recall the iconic brand name.
I would love a world in which Kotex plays easiest but realistically that isn’t happening this week
12. Taj Restaurant Dish Descriptions
Setter: Utkarsh Rastogi
A very amusing quad that puts you in the shoes of a foreign visitor to a fancy Indian restaurant. I can already tell you this will be a hard quad to level since it depends too much on individual background and player demographics.
I keep thinking it makes sense to do a comprehensive player survey at some point, just to learn as much as we possibly can about our player demographic. Naturally, this will help us with leveling and other decisions regarding question setting, but we’ve always decided against it because of how creepy it might seem if a quiz league suddenly starts asking you which city you grew up in and how many languages you speak.
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Baingan ka Bharta was a worthy L1.
Mutton Nihari was harder for me than Mirchi ka Saalan, but I missed both so what do I know
This is the description of which local dish from the Southern Spice restaurant at Taj Coromandel, Chennai? <br><br> "Tempered rice and lentil dumpling, shallow fried in a traditional concave mould and served with a fiery red onion relish"
Man, far too many of you rushed this one and said idli before you could spot the word ‘fried’. Paniyaram, Appe, Paddu, we had a looong list of acceptable answers here.
13. Common Warning Symbols
Setter: Vikas Plakkot
The first of the 3 non-ascending quads. A neat idea, and well executed in terms of phrasing.
Radioactivity was certainly expected to play easiest, even in a non-ascending quad, since we were trying to compensate for other slight imbalances in the set.
I definitely expected Laser to play harder than Biohazard.
High Voltage presented a unique problem to readers. In a game I was reading, I prompted someone on “high current”, and another player pointed out that that’s a shady prompt, since current is “almost an orthogonal answer”. I agreed at the time (I almost always do, it is my job to keep players happy) that it was a generous prompt, but I have since then changed my mind. It is tempting to consider current and power ‘orthogonal’ since that’s how we’re used to seeing them in scientific formulae, but for the purposes of a quiz question (and certainly for the purposes of a warning sign) the two words play very similar roles. For practical purposes, the human body when attached to the ground offers no real resistance, so anything at a high voltage will also cause a high current when you touch it. That’s definitely worth a prompt.
14. CAPF Units of India
Setter: Vikas Plakkot
Every week I'm allowing myself to skip one quad entirely from the writeup. This is that quad.
15. The Seen and the Unseen by Amit Varma
Setter: Utkarsh Rastogi
Since the start of this week, I have been told about 4 times that Amit Varma was until recently a fairly active quizzer himself. I haven’t seen Amit Varma’s reaction to the news that his podcast was featured as a quad, but I imagine he’d be amused.
Update: Someone sent me his reaction.
The players, on the other hand, were not. Easily our hardest quad of the set, I’m curious to see how leveling works for straight difficult questions. I wouldn’t mind too much even if the leveling was completely off to be honest, since experimental quads like this are basically why we insist on using non-ascending quads at all.
Mimetic Desire was the second-hardest question of the week (after Dhofar)
People contain Multitudes is a famous line but not famous enough, at 13%.
Anti Natalism was probably the most workable question, and there was a letter count there to help confirm, but it’s still a risky guess.
Bastiat is just a cool piece of trivia. A man who won the Bastiat prize twice ended up naming his podcast after a Bastiat essay.
And that’s all for Week 2! Reminding you to use our feedback form freely and repeatedly. See you at your next quiz!
Could we have one league game video on youtube? It's interesting to follow along.