So what is "The Colston’s Collegiate 2003/4 Challenge"?

Over three months, three sets of obscure and difficult quiz questions will be published on the Colston’s website (or posted to anyone who does not have access to the internet.)

It is not a ‘General Knowledge’ quiz with answers which are easy to come by. It is a Research Quiz where the answers are obscure and sometimes very specific knowledge will be required to produce the answers.

Each month 10 rounds will be published, each with 10 questions per round. Running through the answers for each group of 10 will be a hidden link. It will be necessary to establish the link to gain full marks for the group of questions.

The enjoyment to be gained from this quiz is in the need to organise the appropriate research. This is why a month is given for the completion of each round. The answers are e-mailed to a dedicated e-mail address by the appropriate deadline.

There will be a £10 entry fee per team and teams will need to register by e-mailing an application form to Mick Hubbard and he will confirm their acceptance and tell them where to send their entry fee.

The first round of questions will be published on the website in December, the second round in January and the third in February. A final round for the leading teams will be held in March with no access to books or the Internet!

1. The quiz will be held over 4 rounds. The first three will be published on the Colston’s Website during December, January and February. A final round will be held at the school in March for the 15 leading teams.

2. Each team will enter by sending an e-mail headed Colston’s Challenge Entry to colstonchallenge@aol.com giving the name of the team and a contact name.

3. There will be an entry fee of £10 per team and the acknowledgement of the entry will be an e-mail giving the address to which the cheque should be sent.. With each acknowledgement, a unique password will be e-mailed to the team contact. This password must be quoted when each round’s answers are submitted.

4. Each time a set of questions is published on the Colston’s website, there will be a closing date by which time the answers must be e-mailed to colstonchallenge@aol.com This time limit will be strictly adhered to, but each response will receive an acknowledgement so that the team contact will know that the entry has been received.

5. The answers to the previous month’s questions will be published on the website and e-mailed to the team contact after the closing date for that round.

6. Each month’s questions will consist of 10 rounds of 10 questions but each round will be worth 11 marks as there will be a common link running through each set of 10 questions. A bonus mark will be awarded for correctly identifying the link.

7. The final round, to be held in March for the leading teams will end with the Colston’s Challenge trophy (and a cash prize) being awarded to the winning team.

8. A team can consist of any number of players.

And now for the competition ...

Due to a number of requests that there has not been sufficient time to complete entries for the first round, the Parents’ Society has decided to relaunch the Colston’s Challenge but extend the date for completion of the first round.. There is now no entry fee to take part, which it is hoped may encourage any of you who were in two minds because of the cost of taking part. It is now just for fun. The first round questions are available under the Parents’ Society link.

Please note that the closing date for entries is now 28th February 2004. The answers to this round together with the round 2 questions will be posted on the website shortly after. It is intended to publish the third and final round of questions on the website at the end of March with the closing date for the Challenge being around the end of April.

An abbreviated and revised set of Rules are set out below:-

1. Each team will enter by sending an e-mail headed Colston’s Challenge Entry to colstonchallenge@aol.com giving the name of the team and a contact name.
Please note that you should enter the competition and get your unique team password before you submit your first round answers.

2. Each round of questions will consist of 10 rounds of 10 questions but each round will be worth 11 marks as there will be a common link running through each set of 10 questions. A bonus mark will be awarded for correctly identifying the link.

3. Answers should be submitted in the format

Round1 (a) aaaaaaa
(b) bbbbbbb
(c) ccccc
(d) dddd
(e) eeeeee
(f) fffff
(g) ggggggggg
(h) hhhhhhh
(i) iiiiiiiii
(j) jjjjjjjj

LINK: answer

Thanks to all those who took the time to enter. We had some entries which were near perfect and must have taken quite some time to research. And that was the key to the Challenge - it was something to team up with friends to solve, so that you each took only some of the sets of questions. Anyway, for those of you who are still puzzling over what it was all about, here are the answers we were looking for. We may run another challenge next year....and if we do, just remember you don't have to be able to answer all of the questions to send in an entry.