Quiz show : egg comes from .....................wheat !!

For ages, we have been thought to believe that Europeans, especially the British are more knowledgeable and able. There are many interesting Quiz shows.  A quiz is a form of game or sport of the mind in which the players (as individuals or in teams) attempt to answer questions correctly.

Neil O'Brien was an early pioneer of quizzing in India. O'Brien conducted the first well-organized, formal quiz in 1967 at Christ the King Church Parish Hall in Calcutta.  His son Derek O Brien also became famous in Quizzing.  DD’s quiz show made Siddharth Basu famous. ‘ Kaun Banega Crorepati quiz’ made a few crorepathis.  In Chennai, every Independence Day is held ‘Landmark Quiz’ attended by hundreds.  It is set up by and run by  Dr.Navin Jayakumar, a dentist, supported by a team comprising Gautam Padmanabhan, and Navin's mother Saranya Jayakumar.  These quizzes are considered difficult and those answering them are considered ‘intelligent’ if not ‘brilliant’ !!

Away in USA, the General Knowledge Paper has stumped pupils at King William’s College for over a century. Upper-level students would sit for the test on the last school day before Christmas.  Times do  change. In 1999 it was deemed “inappropriate that pupils should be deflected from more meaningful revision during Christmas break,” said Dr. Pat Cullen, the quizmaster and a retired physician, chatting from his home not far from the school on the Isle of Man. Currently, the so-called World’s Most Difficult Quiz is voluntary. Low scorers no longer get detention, or high scorers a half day off. Only a handful of students take it now. But the quiz is a parlour game for readers of The Guardian, which has published questions — 18 sets, each on a theme that, too, must be cracked — at Christmas since 1951.  The Internet has taken some sport out of the research, concedes Dr. Cullen, who strives to make the test Google-resistant. Still, as always, he starts the quiz (in Latin): “To know where to find anything is, after all, the greatest part of education.”

Beauty queens  are not exactly noted for their brains as judges tend to be more impressed with their looks and long legs.  Some reports put it that unusually, entrants  at  Miss France pageant  were  tested on their general knowledge to show they were not just a pretty face. The test reportedly caused 'panic' among the 33 contestants who took part at the televised competition on the French-speaking island of Mauritius.  Not that the questions were too tough. They included: 'What's the average price of a baguette?' 'Who is Usain Bolt'? 'Complete the squence: A, E, I ....' and 'Who is the Prime Minister of France'?

For Russia and women, Yelena Serova becoming the first Russian woman on the International Space Station (ISS) was  a momentous occasion.  She was selected as a cosmonaut in 2006 and was assigned in 2011 to Expedition 41, which launched in September 2014. Serova became the first female Russian cosmonaut to visit the International Space Station (ISS)  in  2014.  Despite being a flight engineer and the first Russian woman in space for 17 years, she was asked about make-up and how she will take care of her hair – which naturally irritated her.  The journalist asked the questions during a pre-flight press conference by Nasa ahead of the joint US-Russian mission to the ISS.  

One in ten young adults think eggs come from WHEAT; fewer  than half of 16 to 23-year-olds know that butter comes from a dairy cow; a  third of them were unaware that eggs are laid by hens and one in five believed jam and marmalade come from cereal crops….. it is not here, but in Britain as repored in a newsitem in Daily Mail UK.   The research, carried out for charity Leaf (Linking Environment and Farming), revealed a startling lack of knowledge among young consumers about how our food ends up on the table.

Confused: One in 10 young adults told researchers they believed eggs come from wheat  or maize;  Two thousand people were asked to match staple foods - such as milk, bacon, butter or oil - with pictures of the crop or animal they are made from. Four in 10 young adults failed to link milk with an image of a dairy cow, with 7 per cent of them associating it with wheat.

 Two-thirds of the 16 to 23-year-olds questioned were able to link eggs to a picture of a hen, but 11 per cent thought they came from wheat or maize. Eight per cent of this age group believed that bacon came from wheat, and another 2 per cent said it was made from maize. Only half of young adults correctly identified that steak came from beef cattle, with 12 per cent thinking it came from wheat or maize.  Almost two-thirds of young adults did not know that new potatoes would be available from British farms in June, and one in 10 thought they took less than a month to grow.

The report said, it was shocking lack of knowledge – when young adults responded about the origin of most basic foods on their table.  While 24 per cent of all respondents knew that salad dressing could come from rapeseed oil, only 6 per cent of young adults were able to make the connection. In spite of the findings, 43 per cent of 16 to 23-year-olds told researchers that they considered themselves knowledgeable about where foods come from.

'Three in ten adults born in the 1990s haven’t visited a farm in more than 10 years, if at all, which is a real shame as our farmers not only play an important role in food production but are passionate about engaging and reconnecting consumers too.'

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

30^th Mar 2015.