I mentioned in a previous post the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), which is the UK’s foremost organised body of statisticians. In addition to its role in promoting and publishing all-things statistical, it is also famous for one other thing: its annual Christmas quiz, which is widely considered to be one of the toughest quizzes around. It’s been going for 25 years and is famous enough that it gets reported in full in the Guardian.
Though produced by the RSS, the questions have nothing to do with statistics, and not much mathematics either. That said, the questions do require a good general knowledge, logical thinking and a capacity to approach problems laterally; skills that are useful for statisticians. My personal total score for the quiz over the last 5 years or so is zero.
So, the 2018, 25th anniversary, edition of the quiz is now available here. If you like a good challenge you might enjoy having a go at it. Good luck, and remember that you can’t possibly do worse than me. I’ll post a link to the solutions once they are available.
Just to give you some idea of the types of questions you’re likely to face in the quiz, here’s a question from the 2017 edition:
POLYMERISATION
If 5 is IHNTOBBTTAS, and 10 is IDAATINELR, what will 20 be?
Can you get the answer? There’s a clue in the question title. Once you’ve had enough, scroll down for the solution.
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SOLUTION:
The polymer £5 note introduced in 2016 by the Bank of England features the quote “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” (initial letters IHNTOBBTTAS), while the new polymer £10 note features the quote “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” (initial letters IDAATINELR). The polymer £20, due for release in 2020, will feature the quote “Light is therefore colour” – so the answer is “LITC”.
Obviously I failed to find this solution in much the same way as I failed to find any solution to any of the questions in each of the quizzes for the last five years. I didn’t look at the quizzes in previous years, but you might extrapolate my more recent scores to get a reasonable estimate of what my score would have been if I had.
If you want further practice, you can find the complete 2017 version of the quiz here and the solutions here.
