How TV’S toughest quiz became even more challenging

New gender-balanced questions make University Challenge harder than ever, say contestants

WHEN University Challenge realised that the bulk of their questions related to prominent men, they decided to rectify the situation by ensuring a better gender balance.

However, contestants say that the admirable decision had the unintended consequence of making the already notoriously difficult quiz even harder, because fewer people have heard of the prominent female academics and artists to which the questions refer.

ITV Studios, which produces the BBC show, confirmed it had been attempting to make questions more diverse, but said contestants should not find them any more difficult as they all fall within the range of academic general knowledge.

But one finalist team said that a round relating to female philosophers was more difficult than if it had been about famous male philosophers. They passed on every question.

Rosie Mckeown, from the winning St John’s, Cambridge, team told The Daily Telegraph: “I know our team did badly on the round about female philosophers, and I think we would have had more names to draw on in order to make an educated guess if the questions had been about men.”

Ms Mckeown, 20, said she hoped the questions would encourage the public to learn about women in academia, ex- plaining: “I hope that any increase in difficulty would be offset by the greater awareness of these women created by being mentioned on the show.”

Thomas Benson, the questions editor for the show, has confirmed there has been an effort to equalise the gender imbalance. “About three years ago, a viewer wrote in to point out that a recent episode had contained very few questions on women,” he told the New Statesman. “We agreed and decided to do something about it.”

This was notable during this week’s final, in which there was a round on female artists and a series of questions about Willa Cather, a noted US author.

Contestants also faced a music round on Marin Alsop, the first woman to conduct the Last Night of the Proms, and bonus questions on Anna Komnene, a Byzantine historian and princess.

Mr Benson said that he did not believe the questions were any more difficult now they include more women.

He explained: “The great majority of the questions that feature women are no different to any others, in that they sit firmly within the realm of standard academic general knowledge.”

The questions editor pointed out that they often refer to historical and background details. He gave the example of the bonus rounds on Ruth Ozeki, a Canadian novelist, and Hertha Ayrton, the British physicist, which both teams answered correctly in full.

A University Challenge spokesman said: “When deciding on questions, we continue to look at how best they reflect all people of achievement and historical importance, and try and ensure that they are challenging, entertaining and cover a broad range of subject matter.”