A brief riddle for you, based on tonight's entertainment.
Two teams participate in a quiz with fifty questions. Each question is worth one mark, with no half marks allowed. Team Squid gets 31 of the first 49 questions correct. Team Old Man gets 30 of the first 49 questions correct. Both teams put the same answer for Question 50.
a) Which of the two teams scored higher?
b) How could it have been impossible to explain the answer to the above question to the guy who was supposed to be running the quiz in the first place?
Sometimes I really do think I might as well try teaching butterflies to yodel.
4 comments:
You have a quiz that announces the result after each question?
No, though our Wednesday quiz (the one I put up here) gives the answers after every round.
What happened was I was convinced (incorrectly, as it happens*) that the answer to Q37 was wrong. I didn't think it worth arguing over, though. Then, however, we drew with Team Old Man, having gotten 31 apiece. When we went up to collect our money, I noticed they had put the same answer as we did for Q37, and had gotten it marked right.
I tried to explain to them that if we'd both gotten a score of 31, and had both put the same answer for Q37 but only the other team had had it marked right, then we must have beaten them. Neither the quiz master nor the guy from the other team were capable of following this logic.
Fortunately, since we arguing over which of us was getting the booby prize, I simply walked off, leaving Team Old Man with it by default. Better to come fourth than fifth, even if it does cost you a quid.
*The question itself: who was the last king of Ireland? We thought George V, but it turns out even after it gained independence in the 20's the Irish Free State retained the king as their head of state until 1937, by which time George VI was on the throne.
Hang on. The booby prize for last place contains more money than a prize for fourth place?
There is no prize for fourth, unless there are four teams. The first three teams get the pot shared out between them, save one pound which is given to those that came last.
It gets weirder. If two teams come equal first, they have to choose: either they share the first prize money between them, or they go for a tie-break, and the loser of that gets nothing. Same fos second and third. We've gotten moneh for coming sixth before, simply because two teams tied for first, and three for second.
It's a strange place. Cute barmaids, though...
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