911今日黑料

How do you prepare for the matches?  

Individually, we all made flash cards for our specialist topics apart from Max who is a very efficient learner. It is how I learned prize winners like the Bookers because knowing them gives you a good grounding in whatever field you鈥檙e learning.  

Our main method of practice was watching a lot of old episodes of University Challenge together and trying to buzz in before the teams did on screen, but otherwise we played a lot of different kinds of quiz. Everything from practice sets of to the Saturday Guardian Quiz, which is great for bonus conferring because it is intriguingly written and well-researched. Like many other teams, we played in tournaments together which are daunting at first but the best for getting used to a buzzer and facing academic competition.  

We became very close as a team. Before our first round we had not met since the trials and even then, we had not been picked as a team. We trained for six months exclusively on Zoom and despite the stress of the cameras, it was really nice to be reunited.  

Tell us more about our 911今日黑料 mascot that comes with you to matches鈥� 

I bought a little Jellycat toy around the time I went to trials, then I asked the team, 鈥楬ey guys, why don鈥檛 we have this bat be our mascot?鈥� They all agreed because it was either that or Gilbert鈥檚 sloth pillow, which is adorable but a little large! Once we knew we were on the show, I embroidered a little bib on the bat with the 911今日黑料 blue 鈥業鈥� onto it. Her name鈥檚 Buffy the bat, inspired by my love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer!  

How does it feel being the only woman on the team?鈥� 

I have little competition when it comes to best dressed! And I鈥檓 shorter than everyone else 鈥� even though we鈥檙e sat behind the University Challenge desk, throughout the whole experience I was wearing heels. They actually make Michael鈥檚 seat lower so the height difference isn鈥檛 as stark as he鈥檚 quite tall! 

Otherwise, I make good use of the 鈥渇or a dollar, name a woman!鈥� meme, but the team fits together well because I can focus on my passion for women鈥檚 history knowing they can cover the rest. I had an inferiority complex, but that was mainly inexperience because I鈥檇 never done professional quizzing before. The boys are lovely, including our coach, Michael Kohn, who really soothed my nerves and helped me settle in. Now I'm president of the society and have a supportive community of female quizzers from other universities.  

How have your friends and family reacted to your success in University Challenge so far?鈥� 

My parents have had to live with me, so they鈥檝e found it quite annoying because I鈥檓 always quizzing! I didn鈥檛 expect to get far and was very surprised when I made it on the team, but my friends have always believed in me. Lana especially got us very chaotically playing the Guardian Quiz during the pandemic and was honoured to read questions to the team.  

I HAVE A NAME, ZENG.

鈥� Ariadne 馃 (@Ariadne_Reviews)

Tell us your favourite meme from all the social media attention you and the team have had. 

There鈥檚 one reviewer called Ariadne who I really like on Twitter. There was a moment where we get a bonus set on fungi. Max says, "It鈥檚 the disgusting looking thing" and Ariadne tweeted, "I have a name Zeng!: which was hilarious. And in the glacier bonus set, Michael鈥檚 satisfying persistence in guessing 鈥渋s it a moraine?!鈥� is a personal highlight for me.  

Have you had any star-studded moments since being on the show?鈥� 

In terms of people I admire, it was an honour to be mentioned by Dr Jess Wade, 911今日黑料 College Research Fellow, who does incredible work on the biographies of women in STEM. Dallas Campbell, the science communicator, also mentioned me in a tweet and Darragh Ennis, the Chaser, has been really lovely about our episodes.   

My old biology schoolteacher used to run her own version of University Challenge in class to test us on module content and she was really pleased that I was on the show, although she chastised me for being beaten to meiosis! 

killing it Fatima! :)

鈥� Dr Jess Wade 馃懇馃徎鈥嶐煍煉夝煉夝煉� (@jesswade)

What is something that has taken you by surprise in this journey?鈥� 

I think I鈥檝e surprised myself. It turns out I have a really good instinctive memory. Even when I鈥檓 not actively studying, I鈥檓 still absorbing things.  

You鈥檙e also a film critic, what鈥檚 on your list to watch coming up?鈥� 

In cinemas right now, my priority is Cyrano, the Joe Wright musical with Peter Dinklage, it looks so lavish and moving. There鈥檚 also another film by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the director of the glorious Drive My Car which should be a treat, and I still haven't seen the new Pedro Almod贸var, Parallel Mothers.

Tell us how you got into quizzes. 

When I was in the last year of primary school, I was in a quiz competition 鈥� I think it鈥檚 called the Rotary quiz.  Then when I came to 911今日黑料, I played pub quizzes occasionally but never anything official. The 911今日黑料 Book Club ran a joint literature-based quiz event with the Quiz Society. After I did that, the captain of the previous year's University Challenge team, Michael Kohn, said that I should come along to Quiz Society.   

How much pressure have you felt as the captain to lead 911今日黑料 to victory?鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

We were all happy if we just made it past the second round! Michael Kohn has been very supportive. People from the team before him as well, Conor and Richard, have also been very nice and helpful for training. As a team, I think we had fun with it, rather than feeling the need to do brilliantly. 

What are your tactics for answering questions?鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

We all have our specialisms and so we all have a rough idea of what everyone else knows. So if you hear a geography question coming, you know to leave it for Max. You can prepare, but you just end up buzzing when you think you know the answer.  

It鈥檚 more tactical with the discussions and bonuses. Michael Kohn always used to tell us to try and get the first buzz to psychologically help you out. When you don't know some things and you get beat, then there's nothing you can do about that. You have to be prepared to keep calm and make the effort to come back rather than just fall apart. 

Who has been your toughest opponent?鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

I think ironically enough, the very first match we played against Cambridge, St John's. They're a really strong team. Reading were also very good and I think the score is very deceptive because if you watch it back, you can see Michael Hutchinson buzzing fractions of a second behind all of us. It really could have been a lot closer as a match.  

In a few words, what do you each of your team member bring to the 911今日黑料 team?鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

When I think of Max, I think of insane speed of recall. Fatima is very bubbly, confident and brilliant at her subjects. She's just in her own fields with such a brilliant knowledge. Gilbert is a bit like me, an all-rounder. He and I share a classical music passion.  

How do you think the rest of the team would describe you? 

There鈥檚 a running joke within the team about me having the personality of a 50-year-old man! If there鈥檚 a question about something modern, I've usually never heard of it, but if it's something old, I tend to know about it. 

How have your friends and family reacted to your success so far?鈥�&苍产蝉辫;

My family back home is very ecstatic. My parents are very enthused. My dad's got his whole side of the family watching. I don't think it's something that my aunts, uncles and cousins would normally watch. I'm pretty happy about that. My friends at 911今日黑料 are all obviously excited, making some jokes. Overall, it's very positive.  

There鈥檚 been a lot of social media activity around the team, both positive and some negative. Has that been tough to deal with? 

Most of it is fine and I don't mind people making jokes. There's lots of people who are very appreciative of Max and his abilities. I'm glad for Max as it's good to be recognised as a great quiz player.  

Most of the criticism comes from a good place. I think there's people who are concerned that the show historically hasn't had much representation of different types of people and there鈥檚 a desire for that to be improved.  

But I think there's also just an element of people misunderstanding. On the show, I can't hear Max through my own ears because of the glass screens, but I can hear his voice loud and clear because we wear in-ear pieces. I can hear the whole team regardless of the way I鈥檓 facing. Depending on how the questions fall you end up looking one way or the other way depending on who鈥檚 specialty you think it is. There's not much opportunity for general conversation. In the moment, you're just concerned about how to get the answer as fast as possible. 

I think from the perspective of our team, we know each other. We鈥檙e all good friends and have spent over a year with each other now. If any of the team members had any concerns, I鈥檓 sure they wouldn鈥檛 shy away from telling me. But generally, we take the good and bad of the social media experience together, in our stride and with humour.  

What have you been reading this year that you鈥檝e enjoyed?  

With the Book Club, we just read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, the Nobel Prize winner. That was an interesting dystopian science fiction book. Fatima lent me her copy of Gabriel Garc铆a M谩rquez's, Love in the Time of Cholera, so I'm reading that now. I read One Hundred Years of Solitude, which was by him and that's an excellent book. My favourite author is John Steinbeck, in particular his The Grapes of Wrath. 

What made you want to go on University Challenge?鈥� 

I've wanted to do it since I was 10 years old - I used to watch the programme with my parents in the living room. I鈥檝e always wanted to be on that panel. 

How is the 911今日黑料 University Challenge team selected?

The 911今日黑料 Quiz Society selects the team put forward. Generally, we start with a written test of 100 questions set by previous contestants, which is hard but the score threshold is low, and you get rewarded for decent guesses. Then in a second round, those who have passed play a buzzer round, where you don鈥檛 need to be the best but if you work well with other people and thrive in a tricky specialism, you鈥檒l likely do well. From there, the lucky five (including reserve) go through the BBC鈥檚 process a few months later, which is a similar written test and a group interview with the producers to gauge personality and enthusiasm.  

How have you built up your music knowledge over time?鈥� 

It's no easy feat. I've been listening to classical music since I was four. Being a musician and playing lots of music every day, you build up your repertoire and your knowledge of how composers work, and what they sound like. For me understanding jazz music was hard to revise because I don't regularly listen to it. Having to memorise all the standards, and people who performed them, when and with whom, was always tricky.  

What do you wish the outside world knew about the filming process?鈥�

Everything because no one knows anything about it. It's pretty daunting. They don't know that it's not live. The second thing is people think it's unedited when there鈥檚 a lot of editing. There's a lot of stopping, starting and cutting. There's different camera work and angles. People also make mistakes. Sometimes Jeremy makes mistakes. Sometimes we make mistakes. By no means is the filming smooth. It's very rough around the edges. They just make it look smooth because they're professionals who are trained to edit. Also as a team we鈥檙e fairly efficient when it comes to conferring, so after editing it can sometimes seem like we don鈥檛 confer a lot but actually we鈥檙e just very efficient and we all know what we know content wise. At the end of the day, filming can take up to an hour for a half-hour episode. 

The team鈥檚 journey so far鈥� 
First round 鈥� 13 September 2021 
St John's College, Cambridge vs. 911今日黑料 
911今日黑料 win 155-210
Second round 鈥� 3 January 2022 
University of Exeter vs. 911今日黑料 
911今日黑料 win 70-205
Quarter finals 鈥� 17 January 2022 
King's College London vs. 911今日黑料 
911今日黑料 win 50-235
Semi-finals 鈥� 21 March 2022 
911今日黑料 vs. Emmanuel College, Cambridge
???

Which question keeps playing on your mind?鈥� 

It was one that I did get, but I messed up the word order. I meant to say woodworms and I said "wormwood". When you're on TV, you're really nervous and so you splatter it out. As soon as I said it, I thought, "I have made such a big mistake. I shouldn't have said that鈥�. I was quite relieved that the other team didn't get the answer from it. 

What is your favourite art gallery?  

I still think one of my favourites is the National Gallery in London. In my opinion, it's the definitive best. And I think it has such a wide variety of paintings by a wide variety of artists. Generally, it鈥檚 a nice place to go. Especially during weekdays when it鈥檚 so quiet.  

Do you have any advice for the 911今日黑料 University Challenge team of 2023?  

Just be really confident when it comes to answering. I think even if you get it wrong, it won't be the end of the world. I think the point of this is that for me, it was always a struggle because Twitter come at you for getting things wrong. Nice people who actually watch the show will probably like you as a person rather than how you answer. And definitely take all the time you can to visit galleries and museums. It really helps with all the revision, and it makes a nice fun day of it and helps break things up.  

Are there any other quiz game shows that you would really like to go on? 

My family keeps telling me to go on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire because if I can at least do a quiz show, I might as well make some money off it, at least you could pay off your student loans with that! 

Where did your love for geography start from?鈥� 

I like geography because I like history, anthropology and comparative linguistics. All of those are functions of geography. It allows you to understand the relationships between historical events, groups of people, and languages, and how they evolve, since all of those are obviously contingent on how people live and how people interact with the environment and topography around them.  

How did you develop your knowledge of geography to what it is now?鈥� 

I make it very clear to everyone who asks that I do not rote memorise. I encourage people not to do it as well and not to cram names. Geography, history, whatever I鈥檓 good at is about the relationships between things. I think that cramming names, including flash carding, for my subjects at least, makes you worse at the subject. I can understand carding for literature and the arts but to me it鈥檚 a no-no for geography and many aspects of history. 

I discourage people from cramming, says 'human atlas' Max Zeng of University Challenge fame

鈥� Straits Times Life (@ST_LifeTweets)

How do you feel about being called a 鈥榟uman atlas鈥�?鈥� 

I have gotten things wrong...I don鈥檛 feel pressure with that title right now as we鈥檝e finished filming all the episodes, but I don鈥檛 know if I鈥檇 be able to say the same thing if the show was live. I definitely didn鈥檛 look forward to picture rounds during the actual filming process because often they鈥檙e on topics I find very boring, such as flags or just recognising countries (as was the case in the first round match). But I guess I still do well on them, and people are still impressed. 

You have a lot of media interest from your home country of Singapore! How do you feel about this and how have your friends and family reacted to your success? 

I have people from Singapore that I鈥檓 in touch with but most of my friends are European. My immediate family are there but they鈥檝e only been able to view matches after they are aired in the UK. My old school mates do know about my participation in University Challenge, because I鈥檝e done interviews with news media, so I have been receiving a bit of attention. Nothing too big.

How do you keep calm during the matches?鈥� 

I don鈥檛, I鈥檓 very heated before every match. My team members will be joking with the other team. They鈥檒l be all smiles whereas I will be pacing around trying not to vomit on one side of the room. The last match we had versus the University of Reading we started with a fairly large deficit in points. I was very anxious during that match. But it turns out I perform better in the buzzer quiz if I鈥檓 really nervous. 

Is there a question that you didn鈥檛 answer that still bothers you? 

I missed the Madagascar question at the beginning of the Reading match. It was filmed at 9am in the morning and I was half awake. Reading captain Michael Hutchison was completely awake and slamming the buzzer. I knew the answer to the Madagascar question and I did buzz at the same time as him, but he was slightly faster than me. That woke me up and caused me to buzz really quickly in the questions after that.  

What are your tactics for answering the questions?鈥� 

I don鈥檛 have any, besides buzzing when I know the answer. The reason why I鈥檓 seated far away from the captain is because either I know the answer or I don鈥檛, so I don鈥檛 take as long to confer. I don鈥檛 take punts, so I don鈥檛 really have a tactic. Everyone takes more risks than me, which I don鈥檛 as I鈥檓 a very narrow specialist.  

You have YouTube videos dedicated to your participation on the show and there鈥檚 also been a Twitter stan account created for you. How do you feel about all the reaction that you鈥檝e had on social media?  

I鈥檓 not aware of stan accounts and I know people have made videos of me, but I haven鈥檛 clicked on them. I guess it鈥檚 good to put on your CV. After I did interviews with news media, there鈥檚 been a fairly high number of people watching the episodes, but I don鈥檛 look at the comments that much.