Monday 4 February 2013

University Challenge: Preliminary Quarter-Final 1: Manchester vs Imperial

So, the quarter-finals kicked off tonight. As with the last three series, the teams need to win two matches to reach the semis. This process will take ten matches to complete.

Manchester very narrowly scraped through against Lincoln College Oxford in the first round, but did much better in the second, beating Magdalen College Oxford convincingly. They remained:
David Brice, from Kingston-upon-Thames, studying Economics  
Adam Barr, from Muswell Hill in London, studying Physics with Astrophysics 
Captain: Richard Gilbert, from Warwickshire, studying Linguistics 
Debbie Brown, from Buxton, studying Pain Epidemiology

Imperial convincingly defeated Jesus College Cambridge and Bristol in the first and second rounds respectively, though were never really challenged by either. Facing their toughest match thus far were:
Pietro Aronica, from Brescia in Italy, studying Biochemistry
Dominic Cottrell, from London, studying Medicine
Captain: Martin Evans, from Oxfordshire, studying Pharmacology
Henry Guille, from Cranbrook in Kent, studying Material Science


So, a good match seemed a likely prospect.

The current champs struck first, with Debbie Brown taking the first starter. Then, twice, Richard Gilbert buzzed too early, allowing Imperial to sneak into an early lead. But the Mancunian captain redeemed himself with the first picture round, on Old English Latin letters, which his team swept the board on. This gave them a slender lead of 35-30.

The Mancunians then began to move away, with two starters in a row seeing them build a slender lead. A good buzz from Martin Evans saw Imperial back into the hunt, but David Brice scuppered Imperial's chances of a fightback by taking his first starter of the series. The resultant bonuses, on chemical energetics, saw Paxo remark that Imperial must've been kicking themselves that they didn't get them!

The music round, on choral music, followed, after which Manchester had a lead of 100-50. Imperial could still catch them with two starters, and two board sweepings. But Dominic Cottrell's subsequent early buzz only resulted in them slipping back further. However, the side began to rally, and the deficit began to fall. The second picture round, on English abbeys, subsequently followed. After the starter was dropped, Pietro Aronica caused Paxo to facepalm by suggesting Inspector Clouseau was a romantic figure created by Charlotte Bronte!

Manchester now led by 110-80, so the match was still very much up for grabs. The final stretch began with the sides swapping starters, meaning Manchester's lead remaining at 30 for a while. With not much time left, Henry Guille buzzed, but no answer came, allowing Manchester to pull away further. And when they swept the board on the resultant bonuses, the match was won. At the gong, Manchester won by 185-115.

Hard luck Imperial, but you're not out yet; the last two years have seen a team lose their preliminary, then go on to win the series, so you're still very much in it. Well done Manchester on a deserved victory. The two captains were the best buzzers, with Richard Gilbert getting five for Manchester, and Martin Evans doing likewise for Imperial. Manchester answered 17 bonuses out 31 correctly with two penalties, while Imperial managed 10 bonuses out of 24 with three penalties.

Next week's match: U.C.L. vs Bangor (good luck Welshguy and pocketmouse!) 

5 comments:

  1. That Clouseau answer was pretty hilarious! It will be interesting to see what wrong answer could be even more funny, since apparently we have that to look forward to next week.

    Well played Manchester. Imperial are of course not out of it yet but will now face an uphill battle to qualify for the semis. It does seem like their earlier wins against relatively weak teams have indeed made Imperial look better than they actually are.

    In a slightly bizarre twist to my attempts to rank the teams, putting this result in to my formula has made Manchester suddenly look worse than Imperial! How odd. Back to the drawing board, I guess...

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  2. We were watching this one when it was filmed of course. Clouseau was pretty funny, but I do rather sympathise with Pietro Aronica - I made a rather similar mistake (not as amusing a suggestion perhaps) vs St. Andrews when I suggested "Neutrino" might be a letter in the Greek alphabet. I had heard the first part of the question (subatomic particle with neutral charge), but ignored the second (20th letter of the Greek alphabet) because I didn't know anything about the Greek alphabet (the answer was Lamda). I suspect Aronica did something rather similar, vaguely thinking those actors had all played Clouseau but not knowing anything about Bronte. And fair play to him for being on the show at all, so much of the knowledge is culturally specific that it's always difficult for non-British people to do well.

    Last series there was a similar example where the question was something along the lines of "Which strait did Nelson describe as "awful", it was bridged by Telford in 18-something". The first team answered the Strait of Magellan, then the other the strait of Gibraltar, when the idea of there being a bridge over either is absurd. They'd ignored the part about the bridge and focused only on the fact that it was difficult to navigate, according to Nelson. The answer was the Menai straight, which I knew of course, but only because living in Bangor I'm right next to it!

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  3. Of course it's not unreasonable in the heat of the moment to say something that in retrospect is pretty silly. So I have every sympathy for Aronica really and it's just unfortunate that it's been shown on TV and made the final cut -- and also, really far off the actual answer.

    As an aside, Paxman's going on about Imperial champing at the bit on those Science bonuses -- I bet we've all had that moment from time to time. I know against St. George's for example we got a set of medical bonuses and them several sets of Maths ones that we would probably have both loved to trade -- and the same happens for all other teams. So annoying that we have to remain silent in those moments!

    Again, best of retrospective good luck for next week!

    (By the way, Lambda is the 11th letter of the G.A. and the 20th is Upsilon).

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  4. It was one or the other.

    I was annoyed at never quite getting a decent set of music questions. I would have aced the ones in this match for example.

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  5. Just another example of the way the questions fall. I was seriously annoyed to hear the Fantasia bonuses come up this match as I'd actually gone to the effort of making sure I knew the name Ponchielli for Dance of the Hours. Typical that it came up in another match *whinge*.

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