Christmas Quiz XVIII: Answers and Results

Christmas Quiz XVIII answers and results are out! Congratulations to our joint winners, Nick Wood; and Alex Morris, Alex Craven and Friends.

Christmas Quiz XVIII answers and results are out! Congratulations to our joint winners, Nick Wood; and Alex Morris, Alex Craven and Friends.

The Honour Roll, questions analysis - and, of course, the answers - are below.

But before we get on to that, to make sure you don't miss out on next year's Christmas Quiz, a reminder that you can sign up to receive an update every time I post by entering your email address into the subscription form below. You can also help by sharing what I write (I rely on word of mouth for my audience).

This year was a tightly fought contest, with two teams tying on first place with full marks (the first time ever two teams have got full marks) and a further two teams getting 99 apiece. I drew the cut-off for the Honour Roll at 80 - meaning 14 teams were on it.

There was also a fairly large number of people in the 70s, which is still a very good score, so congratulations also to everyone who got in the 70s - and, indeed, everyone who took part and had fun, no matter how many you got.

The Honour Roll

The Answers

What you’re all waiting for! Here they are:

Christmas Quiz Xviii Answers

180KB ∙ PDF file

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Question Analysis

Taylor Swift may have chalked up many achievements last year, but the Time Person of the Year 2023 has clearly failed to make an impact on quizzers with her Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection (2007) - as Q3 (W4 I2 R7 A3 B4 D5 M4 A1 T5) was the hardest question by far, deduced by only four teams. Which is a pity, because Christmas Must be Something More (What if ribbons and bows didn't mean a thing?) is a great song both musically and lyrically, and has been a firm favourite in our holiday repertoir for the last decade.

Overall, 65 questions were got by everyone on the honour roll. Of the remaining 35, eleven were not got by 4 or more people, and we'll go through these here. Naturally, with two teams getting full marks, all questions were got by at least one team, which as the question-setter is always pleasing.

Hardest of all was Q3, as discussed above, not got by 10 teams¹. Next came three poems - meaning that this was by far the hardest round, which surprised me. These were 41 (by A. A. Milne - this really surprised me! - not got by 8 people); and then 45 (from Lord of the Rings - perhaps unlikely to appear in books of poems) and 46 (one of the poems from my GCSE English collection that I actually liked; I have even quoted it on the blog twice this year), both not got by 7 people.

Also not got by 7 people was 95 (poor Boris Johnson, clearly even the memories of his days as a giant toad are dwindling fast). Next, both not got by 6 people, came 64: Around the World in 80 Days (the hardest book). Not got by five people came three more: 84: Polo: The Mint With the Hole (which slightly unexpectedly proved to be the hardest slogan by some way), 74 (Kepler's 2nd Law, which is indeed fairly obscure) and 67 (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Finally, not got by 4 people each was 62 (the ending of The Nine Billion Names of God, by Arthur C Clarke) and yet another poem, 44: When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride (Kipling, The Female of the Species).

And that's it for another year! Once again, thank you to everyone who takes part, whether they're aiming for the Honour Roll or just to have fun - it's always a pleasure to see so many happy Quizzers.

Finally, before we go a reminder, the 2024 Prediction Contest will open on 10 January - and is a lot easier on the brain than the Christmas Quiz - so stay tuned and tell your friends!

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