Let's have an answer! Take our fiendish University Challenge quiz

The University Challenge finalists: Magdalene college, Cambridge v Warwick University. Photograph: BBC

1. The opening scene of which of Shakespeare’s plays comprises just 61 words, the longest of those words being "lightning", "hurlyburly" and "graymalkin"?

   1. Macbeth

   2. Twelfth Night

   3. Timon of Athens

   4. Comedy of Errors

2. What term for a type of particle accelerator also applies to a type of electromagnetic radiation generated by charged particles spiralling in magnetic fields?

   1. Cyclotron

   2. Gamma

   3. Synchrotron

   4. Collider

3. 

   The works of which Italian artist, born in 1449, include St Jerome in His Study and the frescoes for the Sassetti chapel in Florence? His numerous apprentices included Michelangelo.

   1. Fra Angelico

   2. Domenico Ghirlandaio

   3. Leonardo Da Vinci

   4. Sandro Botticelli

4. For which film set in Rome did Paolo Sorrentino win the 2014 Academy Award for best foreign language film?

   1. Life Is Beautiful

   2. The Great Beauty

   3. Parasite

   4. The Postman

5. What bird does the British Trust for Ornithology describe as: "By far the biggest passerine, with a similar wingspan to a buzzard. The bill is strikingly long and heavy"?

   1. Long-tailed tit

   2. Rook

   3. Raven

   4. Tawny owl

6. 

   In March 1969, the Ussuri River was the scene of armed clashes between which two major powers?

   1. China and the Soviet Union

   2. The Soviet Union and the US

   3. China and the US

   4. The UK and Argentina

7. In April 1912, Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly solo over which body of water, crossed earlier by Louis Blériot?

   1. The Channel

   2. Atlantic Ocean

   3. Black Sea

   4. Lake Superior

8. 

   Described as "the little town keeping the lights on in France", Arlit in Niger was until 2021 the site of one of the world’s largest mines of which toxic metal?

   1. Bismuth

   2. Mercury

   3. Lead

   4. Uranium

9. What colour links the field of the flag of the Basque country, William Morris’s house in Bexleyheath and leading football clubs in Belgrade and Salzburg?

   1. Red

   2. Green

   3. Purple

   4. Blue

10. Who wrote the Nebula-award-winning novels Doomsday Book and All Clear?

    1. George R R Martin

    2. Neil Gaiman

    3. Connie Willis

    4. Ursula Le Guin

11. 

    Nenagh, Clonmel and Cashel are towns in which inland Irish county, bordering Galway and Cork?

    1. Kerry

    2. Tipperary

    3. Kildare

    4. Offaly

12. According to Jeff Bezos, what "has some magical ability to turn off the politeness gene in the human being"?

    1. Online reviews

    2. Social media

    3. Email

    4. Hunger

13. In materials science, the ratio of the contractile to the tensile strains is named after which French scientist, born in 1781?

    1. Pierre-Simon Laplace

    2. Charles Friedel

    3. Siméon-Denis Poisson

    4. Louis Pasteur

14. 

    Which English cathedral is noted for stained-glass rose windows known as the Dean’s Eye and the Bishop’s Eye?

    1. Lincoln

    2. Durham

    3. Ely

    4. York Minster

15. Totem and Taboo, and Civilisation and Its Discontents are early 20th-century works by which thinker?

    1. Otto Rank

    2. Frantz Fanon

    3. Carl Jung

    4. Sigmund Freud

Solutions

1:A, 2:C, 3:B, 4:B, 5:C, 6:A, 7:A, 8:D, 9:A, 10:C, 11:B, 12:C, 13:C, 14:A, 15:D

Scores

1. 15 and above.

   You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo

2. 14 and above.

   You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo

3. 13 and above.

   You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo

4. 12 and above.

   You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo

5. 11 and above.

   You may not confer – and you certainly don't need to, with a score like that! Bravo

6. 10 and above.

   And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?

7. 9 and above.

   And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?

8. 8 and above.

   And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?

9. 7 and above.

   And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?

10. 6 and above.

    And at the gong ... you've done pretty well. Not quite well enough to be in the University Challenge final ... but who needs that kind of stress anyway?

11. 5 and above.

    Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round

12. 4 and above.

    Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round

13. 3 and above.

    Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round

14. 2 and above.

    Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round

15. 0 and above.

    Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round

16. 1 and above.

    Oh, do come on! You tried your best, but unfortunately there's no way you're going through to the next round

The University Challenge grand final airs Monday 5 April at 8.30pm on BBC Two