For the 2 of you indicating you named 54 countries in 36 seconds just goes to show you're great African nations by rote, but not using your thinking caps about the subject at hand.
Thinking takes more time than randomly blurting stuff out. The same mechanism goes for everyday life, the loudest people that speak non-stop don't always say the most intelligent things. (That doesn't mean that everyone that is quiet is very clever ;) ) Especially if measured by amount of valuable contributions/word ;)
But going slightly off-track, and I'll stop before this becomes an entire essay ;) And nothing was aimed at either of you personally btw. Just saw the resemblance between quiz and real life, a quality/quantity thing.
I am just of the opinion, what is the fun in just randomly naming all the african countries you know, it is much more fun to actually think about the question.
I agree...on quizzes like this I assume i'll be able to figure them out, but i like to play a game of hangman with myself. Try to figure them all out before getting X number of misses. I only had 2 misses on this one. Pretty good.
I actually tried to think and picture the big African countries rather than guessing completely and still got them all with 1:02 left so I agree. 2 minutes seem like a good time.
I got a few by trying to think of any African countries that were internationally known for any particular industry (including tourism). Then I got the rest of them by just guessing the most populated countries. There were no big surprises (What!? How did Lesotho and Burundi make the list!?), so I got them all with 2:28 left.
A lot of the time (previously all of the time, now an ancient very heavy laptop). A big percentage of the time I play before I go to sleep, or right when I wake up. (my brain wakes up before my body does, for most people it is the other way around) and a tablet is way more convenient then. Same goes for in the garden.
A smartphone might get fiddly I agree, but then again, some smartphones now adays are about the same size as tablets..
Smart decision! It is pretty clear (at least if, like me, one lives in Europe) that the three large north African countries should be on the list. And anyone presumably knows that Nigeria and South Africa are big. So there's plenty of time to "scattergun" the rest of the continent.
So I was sitting there with 2:00 left and one more country to get (it turned out to be Angola) just typing, Congo, D.R. Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, all the while getting angrier and angrier...but seriously how is D.R. Congo not in the top ten?
Oh yes, blame the current status of the Congo on Belgium and King Leopold! (what Belgian colonists did were appalling, but would you consider it worse than the Holocaust?)
Are you serious? You blaming things that happened a 100 year ago on todays situation? China has been through ten times worse than that in the 40's, 50's and 60's and yet today they are an economic superpower. Playing the blame game instead of taking responsibility is very trendy these days...
I can assure you I'm fully aware of what happened in the Congo. You can analyze pretty much any country in the world and find bloodshed and brutalities in the past. History is NEVER an excuse for a country to remain in misery. Just look at how well Rwanda is doing today compared to 25 years ago.
I'm not an expert on Congolese history (and admittedly much of the stuff I do know is from "The Poisonwood Bible"), but the Belgians are in large part responsible I think. Belgium left the country overnight with barely any institutions. The entire country only had 16 college graduates when it gained independence, and no doctors or lawyers. Also, when conflict immediately erupted in the Congo after independence, Belgians continued to interfere with Congolese politics, killing their independence leader Lumumba and supporting Mobutu Sese Seko, who was notoriously corrupt. Seko was only deposed in 1998, which is much more recent than 1960.
I don't want to oversimplify things and lay the blame solely at Belgium's feet, but, to a large extent, I think their actions 60 years ago set the stage for the Congo's woes today.
Got it with 29 seconds to go. Actually, I had only country remaining with a minute and a half to go, then I kept on typing the names of countries I had not written yet till I got Tanzania right!! Phew!!!
Got all 10 with 0:53 left. Angola was the last one I guessed, though I got three in rapid succession before that as I noticed a concentration in eastern Africa.
I don’t understand how DRC have only $52billion but 85million people! How are they alive! And they’re heading for a bad future considering they’re projected to have 350million people in 80 years. I guess they haven’t practised safe sex.
But going slightly off-track, and I'll stop before this becomes an entire essay ;) And nothing was aimed at either of you personally btw. Just saw the resemblance between quiz and real life, a quality/quantity thing.
I am just of the opinion, what is the fun in just randomly naming all the african countries you know, it is much more fun to actually think about the question.
A smartphone might get fiddly I agree, but then again, some smartphones now adays are about the same size as tablets..
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I don't want to oversimplify things and lay the blame solely at Belgium's feet, but, to a large extent, I think their actions 60 years ago set the stage for the Congo's woes today.
(I'm joking in case someone doesn't get it)
I got Ghana at the last second