General Knowledge Quiz

The King William's College General Knowledge Paper

The King William's College General Knowledge Paper (GKP) has been frustrating and intriguing a select group of quiz connoisseurs for just over a century. The paper consists of 18 sets of 10 questions, each set covering a particular theme (which in many cases is far from obvious). Cracking the theme has long been one of the attractions to devotees of the GKP.

Up until 1999, pupils at King William's College would sit the paper unseen on the last day of term before the Christmas holidays. The questions are very hard and often cryptic, and pupils got hardly any questions right first time: five percent was considered a good score! During the Christmas holidays, pupils tried to find the answers to the harder questions by consulting reference books or asking clever relatives. When they returned to school in the New Year, they took the test again, under exam conditions and without the aid of notes.

These days, however, pupil participation in the quiz is voluntary.

The quiz has been published in The Guardian Newspaper just before Christmas since 1951 and has quite a devoted following. Answers are published in the same newspaper towards the end of January.

A Latin phrase is always printed at the top of the quiz: “Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis
ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est”. Freely translated, this means "the greatest part of knowledge is knowing where to find something". However, be warned – using Google or a similar search engine may not always deliver the expected results!

The person responsible for compiling the questions for the last ten years is Dr Pat Cullen, a retired General Practitioner and OKW, residing in the Isle of Man.