International Students Pub Quiz | Top Universities
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International Students Pub Quiz

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Laura Bridgestock

Updated Mar 26, 2021
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If you spend time as a student in the UK (and a number of other countries), you’ll almost certainly encounter a pub quiz. This is where you go to a pub with some people you know, call yourselves a team, and then compete against other teams in a series of quiz rounds.

Common characteristics of pub quizzes in the UK:

  • There’s one team that pretty much always wins. Every week. Everyone else hates them. They are smug.
  • At least one question prompts huge controversy, and one of your mates will keep bringing it up for the next week/month/the rest of your lives.
  • All the teams have rubbish and/or bizarre team names, such as ‘The good, the bad and Kevin’ or ‘We want cheese’ (actually, those are relatively good ones, I must remember them…).
  • There’s always a music round, where you listen to part of a song and then desperately probe your memory for the artist and title (cue: “Oh, oh, oh… I know this, oh, oh… no, can’t remember”).
  • There’s always at least one question about literature, which everyone expects me (English literature graduate) to know, and I almost never do.

It’s a pretty basic format, but why not have a practise run anyway – and test your study-abroad knowledge while you’re at it… (beer, crisps and bickering with team-mates optional).

Round one: The pictures round

In actual pub quizzes, this is usually a set of photos of celebrities you have to name. In this themed version, I’ve replaced celebs with well-known university buildings. See how many you can recognize! (It’s pretty hard, so give yourself half a mark for getting the right country.)

     

  

Round two: True or false

Very simple, this round just requires you to decide whether each statement is true or false.

1. Between 2000 and 2009, the number of international students at universities worldwide increased by more than 75%.

2. In Canada, international students contribute more to the economy than coal exports.

3. The average government scholarship received by international students in China is more than US$10,000.

4. There are more international students in the US state of New York than in the US state of California.

5. At a recent UNESCO event, it was estimated that there are more than 20,000 universities in the world.

Round three: General knowledge

I’ll make it multiple choice, to be nice!

1. In London, UK, what fraction of the city’s students are international students?
a) About a sixth
b) More than a quarter
c) One tenth

2. In the QS World University Rankings 2011/12, what is Asia’s highest-ranked university?
a) University of Hong Kong
b) National University of Singapore
c) University of Tokyo

3. Which language has the most native speakers?
a) Arabic
b) Portuguese
c) Italian

4. Which is the most popular non-Anglophone (non-English-speaking) destination for international students?
a) France
b) Mexico
c) Germany

5. In which country could you complete an undergraduate degree free of charge, wherever you come from?
a) Ireland
b) Finland
c) Egypt

The answers are coming up below – work out your score out of 15 and let us know how well you did!

    0-5 More research needed.

    5-10 Well done, you know your study-abroad facts.

    10-15 Congratulations, you can officially join Team Smug.

Answers below – NO CHEATING!

Round one.
1) Harvard, US.
2) Université Paris-Sorbonne, France.
3) Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US.
4) Tsinghua University, China.
5) University of Melbourne, Australia.

Round two.
1) True.
2) True.
3) False.
4) False.
5) True.

Round three.
1) b
2) a
3) a
4) c
5) b