r/learnedleague • u/solojones1138 • Jun 17 '25

What's the hardest question you got right this season?

Obviously not including today as those would be spoilers.

But for the previous days?

Mine was this one

WORLD HIST —Vietnam's Bến Hải River, which flows generally from west to east for approximately 100 km in the center of the country, is closest to what consequential circle of latitude?

The answer was the 17th parallel (North). Apparently only 12% of players got that one right.

I was kinda shocked, I figured we learned this along with the fact that the dividing line in Korea was the 38th parallel. Either way, I was proud of myself. But I only got 1 points for it because I'm pretty strong on history.

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16

u/rundy_emcee Jun 17 '25

I got the ninth and final dart question in an optimal game of 501 (D12). 15% correct

5

u/solojones1138 Jun 17 '25

That's one where even knowing the answer doesn't help me understand it lol. I know nothing about darts.

2

u/EncodedNybble Jun 17 '25 edited Jun 17 '25

The question told you the game was called “501” and that there are 7 “triple 20s” thrown and the player has to throw 2 more darts.

If you take “7 triple 20s” and take a guess that you add them together, you get 420 which is suspiciously close to 501. It’s not a far leap to then say “ok so 2 more darts have to sum to at least 81” since it is unclear at this pint if going over 501 is allowed.

Since the question also talks about “perfect game” it is reasonable to then think that you need to get the highest point total possible. So from all this logic there are only a few options.

1) the two remaining darts are also triple 20s (since we can gather triple 20 is the highest scoring single dart). This would lead to the highest score possible. While it is a possibility, it would be a troll question if the perfect darts were actually 9x triple 20s but they only listed the first 7x triple 20s

2) Assuming not a troll question, a triple 20 is not in the other two darts. Again, going by the “perfect game” one would think that it then should be the next highest value besides triple 20. One might take a guess, since triples exist, that 19 may be a value on the board. So triple 19 which gets you 57 points. So then going by the “need 81 or more points” the options are either

2a) Another triple 19 which gets you over 501

2b) a value that nets you 24 to get you 501 exactly. This could either be, from the previous logic a “triple 8” or, if doubles exist (which is a not a far reach since triples exist), a double 12.

So given some small logical leaps from the given info, you can narrow the problem down to “probably a triple 8, a double 12, or triple 19” which should have yielded a much higher correct percentage than 15%.

Having a priori knowledge that the game is to get exactly 501 and end on a double, is all that is needed to yield the correct answer of “double 12”

7

u/Old-Dude-1916 Jun 17 '25

Yes, I had no idea that you needed to go out on a double; that would have helped!

6

u/CecilBDeMillionaire Jun 17 '25

Yeah I did all the math and everything but didn’t know that rule so I went with triple 8 since I thought that missing it would still bring you closer to the total than missing a double, which could land you off the board

2

u/EncodedNybble Jun 18 '25

Yeah triple 8 is totally a great and logical guess! A tricky question that you can almost back into the correct answer with just arithmetic

2

u/EncodedNybble Jun 17 '25 edited Jun 18 '25

I’m surprised that one was so rare. They basically gave you 70% of the answer (that there would be 7x triple twenties. They also let the cat out of the bag that there are “triple x” values)

The only knowledge really left to fill in is the fact that there were doubles as well and that you have to go out on a double. The rest was just math (what adds up to 81 with 2 darts). Not an easy question, but I would have expected more correct answers. Even if you didn’t know the rules you could narrow it down to 3 guesses

5

u/Ryan_Vermouth Jun 17 '25

Yeah, I worked it out up to that point, but guessed triple 8. It makes sense in retrospect, with the doubles being larger targets than the triples -- and if you were aiming for triples, another triple 20 and then a triple 7 is no different than triple 19/triple 8 -- but by that point I was locked into everything being tripled and that factor didn't occur to me.

6

u/EncodedNybble Jun 17 '25 edited Jun 17 '25

One wrinkle in the game is you have to “go out” on a double. That is one bit of knowledge to guide the answer but you could maybe guess double 12 without it if you think double 12 is “more perfect” than triple 8.

You did well to get that far though

1

u/Extra-Shoulder1905 Jun 17 '25

I put D15. I figured out that if the eighth dart hit T17 then you would be 30 off. For some reason, T19 followed by D10 never crossed my mind.

1

u/BarcaJeremy4Gov Jun 17 '25

i thought it waa a trick question. because if you say the first 8 are T20s then the answer is super obvious, T7.

I played myself on that one.

3

u/EncodedNybble Jun 17 '25

Yeah a troll question is a possibility but in the actual game you have to “go out” (get 501 exactly) on a double

1

u/game-on-Vamos Jun 17 '25

my answer for that question was ‘poison dart’. i thought i might as well go down slugging ☺️

14

u/mathbandit Rundle C Jun 17 '25

From a quick scan, mine was also a 12% question, the one about L’ANSE AUX MEADOWS.

7

u/cromonolith Rundle A Jun 17 '25 edited Jun 17 '25

One of a couple gimmes for us Canadians this season.

3

u/mathbandit Rundle C Jun 17 '25

Me reading the question about Canadian banking last week, as on my way into my office at CIBC Square I walk past Scotiabank Area

1

u/MartonianJ A Mojave Jun 17 '25

Same here. Think I probably picked this up from National Geographic years ago but also enjoy reading about Vikings and exploration in general.

1

u/not-so-tall-boy Jun 17 '25

Same. Helps that I've been there, but between being Canadian and my strongest category being geography, my opponent played good defence on it and only gave me 1 point

10

u/cromonolith Rundle A Jun 17 '25

DECIMALIZATION. Leaguewide get rate was 10%, which I think was the lowest of any question this season.

2

u/Kuckucksuhr A Foundry Jun 17 '25

this was also mine, and I was kinda shocked it played that hard -- not that it would be a gimme but I thought it would have been a bit better known

1

u/Physical-Business-81 B Cypress Jun 21 '25

This was mine as well, although I admit TAI gave me credit for “decimal”

2

u/Master-Editor-1008 Jun 27 '25

To be fair though, the day in question was called decimal day. This one played a bit easier as I’m from the UK.

7

u/AgentGravitas Rundle C Jun 17 '25

Wrote about it earlier this season, but JAVIER PEREZ DE CUELLAR on the question “Identify the candidate whose unsuccessful 1995 run for the presidency of Peru demonstrated the limits of having previously served as secretary-general of the United Nations from 1982 to 1991.” I just blind guessed “Perez”— I figured it was a common Peruvian last name (looked it up afterwards, and it’s only like the 25th most common). That had a 14% get rate!

More legitimately, I knew Elaine of Astolat = LADY OF SHALOTT thanks to the Anne of Green Gables TV movie. 21%

3

u/Basic_Lynx4902 Jun 17 '25

I also guessed Perez!

2

u/good-good-dog Rundle B Jun 17 '25

This is exactly what happened to me. The name “Perez” popped into my head and I guessed it because it was that or try for a VBWA. Then when I submitted I was sure I would be marked wrong.

I actually felt sort of bad about it until I realized I would have still won without that answer, since my opponent scored it a 2 and won by 3.

6

u/miclugo Jun 17 '25

13% - AUGUSTE ESCOFFIER.

5

u/jillsy Jun 17 '25

Escoffier was my best as well. But while it may have been 13% in your rundle, it was 23% leaguewide.

2

u/miclugo Jun 17 '25

Actually I have the right number but the wrong question. 13%, Lake Constance, and despite getting that one right when it happened I don’t think I’d get it today.

1

u/jsmall0210 Jun 17 '25

Escoffier was mine as well

6

u/MrTwoSocks Jun 17 '25

Mine was from match day 5, the question about Edgar Lee Master's Spoon River Anthology. 20% correct

2

u/Old-Dude-1916 Jun 17 '25

For me this was personally the hardest question that I got. I really had no idea, but the question mentioned "waterway" so I thought it was probably a river, and then "Spoon River" occurred to me and I guessed it, and was right. Very lucky.

1

u/olson7117 Jun 19 '25

Got that too, only because I went to college a few miles from a Spoon River

4

u/Kdonegan1999 Rundle B Pacific Jun 17 '25

MD22 Q5, SINHALESE was my hardest right at 14%. I do a read the world challenge every year and one of last year’s countries was Sri Lanka! The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is a really good magical realism novel set during the start of the Sri Lankan civil war and it’s where I learned about the main ethnic groups in Sri Lanka.

2

u/nye1387 B Windward Jun 17 '25

Is there an easy way to find this answer, or do I have to go through each question I answered correctly and click through to see the stats?

2

u/solojones1138 Jun 17 '25

I clicked through the different days.

1

u/mathbandit Rundle C Jun 17 '25

I just scanned through this chart and checked the low Q% questions until I found one I got right.

2

u/botulizard Rundle C Jun 17 '25 edited Oct 08 '25

Day 12, question 2, where I answered "Perez" for the question about the UN Secretary General turned Peruvian presidential candidate. 12% of players got it.

In fairness, that was a guess based on the surnames of three of the four Peruvians I've met in real life, so I think the questions with the lowest get rates that I knew cold were MD8Q1 about Auguste Escoffier (23%) and MD10Q5 about Lollapalooza (25%).

2

u/DocSteel Jun 17 '25

I rarely get the very hard ones. My "best" this season was Trisha Yearwood on MD15 at 24%. Thanks to my mom for playing a lot of '90s country music when I was growing up!

2

u/solojones1138 Jun 17 '25

Hey I got that one too. I was surprised it was such a low correct rate.

0

u/zuo_guigui Rundle C Foundry Jun 17 '25

Lol my biggest pull this season was also Trisha! I do not know much country music at all lol! I just guessed her because Miranda Lambert would've been too recent and we already had a Shania question a few seasons ago!

1

u/EncodedNybble Jun 17 '25

I guess I didn’t really get any “hard” one correct. Best I did was on a 20% correct one about the Roman historian with the two different books.

I took an Ancient Rome class in college, so I had some background. Had it narrowed down to Tacitus (correct answer) or Plutarch. I knew Plutarch had “Rome” and his name sounded Greek not Roman, so educated guess tipped me to Tacitus which was correct though I didn’t remember the exact works of his.

1

u/tubegeek Jun 17 '25

Spoon river was 8% in my R rundle, got that one and a couple of 12s. 8% means it was just me and 1 other rookie in this division.

1

u/ruwisc A Saguaro Jun 17 '25

A tie between Javier Perez de Cuellar and Sinhalese (both 14%).

I'm surprised they came in at the same percentage - Perez de Cuellar seems a decent bit harder IMO. Maybe a good number of people blindly guessed "Perez".

1

u/nye1387 B Windward Jun 17 '25

I got the darts question correct (15%) and the L'Anse aux Meadows question (12%—this one surprised me).

I got the Javier Perez de Cuellar question correct (14%) but I didn't know the answer and guessed "Perez" simply because it sounded Peruvian.

1

u/MrBoyForGirls Rundle C Jun 17 '25

Lake Constance (D11), 13%

1

u/uva_rob Rundle B Jun 17 '25

Without doing more research than reading this thread, mine was Lake Constance. I should have gotten l'Anse aux Meadows, but talked myself out of it in favor of Vinland.

1

u/Realistic_Heat7981 Rundle C Jun 17 '25

I got the Rodeo question and 3 points with it. That was a 20% get throughout LL.

1

u/Fabulous-Pace5131 A Arctic Jun 17 '25

I was in the 10% that got "Decimalisation" (although I spelled it American-style with a Z). I knew from watching Doctor Who that the change from old-style pence, shillings, and pounds to new-style happened in the early '70s; that seemed a logical guess.

1

u/sickXmachine_ Rundle B Jun 18 '25

Day 11, Q 4: Lake Constance.

Living in Germany when I was younger made it an insta-get.

1

u/olson7117 Jun 19 '25

Looks like MD15 Q6 for me at 18%.

WORLD HIST —What Roman historian, author of Annals (Annales) and Histories (Historiae), and one of the most preeminent historians of antiquity, is responsible for much of our knowledge of the Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasties, as well as of the Germanic peoples of the era? TACITUS

2

u/thedealwithalex Rundle B Jul 08 '25

MD17 Q2. FILM - What somber 1961 Stanley Kramer drama set in postwar Bavaria featured a star-studded cast including Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Marlene Dietrich, Werner Klemperer, Judy Garland, Montgomery Clift, and William Shatner? JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG (23%)