The Chase

[malagabob]

Question. What letter added to unstable gives a town in Bedfordshire.
Contestant Umm Umm Milton Keynes.

[pixie373]

It's in Bucks

[davetuc]

It is a case of his mind just going to jelly. I was on The Chase last year, and believe me that first round is high pressure. The final round is nerve wracking as well, but in a different way.

[jim360]

Well done you. Did you win?

[davetuc]

I got to the Final Chase along with one other contestant. We were playing for £15,000. We managed 19, but were caught with 15 seconds left by Paul Sinnah. Absolutely gutted!

[jim360]

Ah, that's a shame -- still, 19 isn't anything to be ashamed of. Well done for making it on at all.

[mazie]

I'd love to do it dave but I suspect nerves would get the better of me. My 10 year old granddaughter is always asking me to go on.

[mazie]

19's a good score for 2 finalists dave. Well done you.

[jim360]

I've mentioned this before, I'm sure, but I have applied to go on The Chase once. Never heard anything back. Might try again at some point but not expecting anything.

[mazie]

I think I might apply Jim.... go on you have a go too

[Ken4155]

Surely there are no such things as 'difficult' questions and 'easy' questions. You either know the answer or you don't. I used to set the questions for my local pub's quiz nights and i arranged them in 'levels of difficulty'.

[mazie]

Spot on Ken and that's what bothers me...I've never been a lucky person ;o)

[atsgran]

Don't watch it, but Hopkirk your video is hilarious, still laughing

[jim360]

I think the grading is more subtle than just "know it" or "don't". Certain facts are in principle easier to recall than others -- length, or pronunciation, or some other complicating feature can mean that you might have heard of the "Banach-Tarski" Theorem and know what it is, but can only remember the sort of "duDUM DURRda" rhythm to how it sounds. Or maybe two people who both worked in a field have similar-sounding names so you mix the two up, or a question is phrased in such a way that the key piece of information is obscured or not emphasised.

There's yet another set of questions where it might be possible to reason your way to the answer without ever having come across the fact before, which can be easy or difficult to do. Any mental maths questions can rely on three separate processes: recalling the correct formula, interpreting it correctly, and then plugging in the numbers and doing the calculation, and these are clearly "harder" than simply being asked to state the formula.

And finally there is the whole category of questions where the piece of information is so obscure that if you don't know it there is nothing you can do but put out an almost entirely random guess. Such questions are called "killer questions", I think, by the Eggheads.

At any rate, the formula "you know it or you don't" is surely too simple.