Season 20 recap/quiz

Hi everyone! I wanted to try giving you a mini-recap of Season 20, highlighting some quiz questions along the way. I’ll put an answer key at the bottom of the email.

Season 20 saw 289 players submit at least one quiz. To use a baseball analogy, you could say I lost a bit on my fastball this past season, with the most difficult question (19.4% get rate) being this Day 5 question:

[Q5] THE FEMALE LEAD IN THE MARX BROTHERS MOVIE “A NIGHT AT THE OPERA,” THIS FREQUENT GAME SHOW PANELIST APPEARED ON “TO TELL THE TRUTH” IN SIX DIFFERENT DECADES — FITTINGLY, HER LAST FILM ROLE (IN SPIELBERG’S “CATCH ME IF YOU CAN”) WAS PLAYING HERSELF IN A REENACTMENT OF ONE EPISODE

I may not have had the 100-mph pitches this season (by comparison, Seasons 17-19 had an average of three questions under 10% get rate), but as for the overall difficulty, there was a total of 33/100 questions under 50% get rate (compared to an average of about 28/100 in Seasons 17-19). As an aside, I do wonder what the get rate on this Day 12 question would have been without the clue about “bestselling author John” (29.8% got the answer right as written).

[Q5] NO RELATION TO BESTSELLING AUTHOR JOHN, THIS NOVELIST AND HIS WIFE EDITH SERVED JAIL TIME FOR ATTEMPTING TO PUBLISH A FAKE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HOWARD HUGHES, BELIEVING THE RECLUSIVE BILLIONAIRE WOULD NOT DRAW ATTENTION TO HIMSELF BY RAISING A FUSS (OBVIOUSLY, THEY WERE WRONG)

On Day 10, I had a ruling decision to make, as many people submitted what turned out to be one-half of the two-word answer that I was looking for. My apologies to the players who ended up on the wrong side of this one, as I decided that answer was not specific enough.

[Q4] THE MAKERS OF KARO, A BRAND OF THIS FOOD PRODUCT, HELPED POPULARIZE PECAN PIE TO THE POINT THAT “KARO PIE” BECAME AN ALTERNATE NAME FOR THE HOLIDAY FAVORITE

Condolences as well to those who missed the season’s biggest land mine (also coming on Day 10). Only 34.1% got this question right, despite 50.4% of the league assigning it the maximum 5 confidence points. You are all so good, you’ll forgive me if sometimes I have to get a little sneaky. It just goes to show, when your brain thinks of an answer that seems like it fits, it’s very hard to think past it.

[Q1] THE IDIOM “EATING” THIS, REFERRING TO ADMITTING A MISTAKE, COMES FROM AN ACTUAL 17th CENTURY ENGLISH PIE FILLED WITH MINCED INNARDS

Probably the widest range of answers came on this Day 2 question (to be expected, since two answers were required). I wasn’t quite sure how this one would play, but the league handled it fairly well, with 63.8% answering correctly.

[Q4] TWO (OF FOUR POSSIBLE) ANSWERS REQUIRED: THE CAPE BUFFALO IS GENERALLY CONSIDERED THE MOST DANGEROUS OF THE “BIG FIVE” AFRICAN GAME ANIMALS, A GROUP THAT ALSO INCLUDES THESE TWO ANIMALS

The final results are archived here (season20.schooloftrivia.com). Thanks to everyone who played and congrats to those who advanced! I also updated the “Top 250” and “Graphs” tabs on the leaderboard page, so they now include all-time stats through Season 20.

Season 21 is currently underway, but you can jump in at any time and catch up! Click below to become a paid subscriber and receive quiz newsletters every weekday.

Good luck! As always, feel free to reply to this email or reach me on Twitter with any questions, feedback, etc. (ANSWER KEY BELOW!)

Alex

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Answer key:

1. KITTY CARLISLE (most common wrong answer: “SMITH”)

2. (CLIFFORD) IRVING (most common wrong answer: “GRISHAM”)

3. CORN SYRUP (most common wrong answer: “SYRUP”)

4. HUMBLE PIE (most common wrong answer: “CROW”)

5. ELEPHANT, LEOPARD, LION, RHINO (most common wrong answer: “HIPPO”)