Love the quizzes so far but gotta agree with Sulps on this one. Making this category per capita isn't really fun its just shots in the dark at countries with low populations instead of actually having to think about the category.
I dunno. I got all but St Lucia by thinking which small countries would be more likely to pick up a Nobel prize. I agree that St Lucia is something you need to know to get right, you're not going to guess it.
alcohol and food consumption it makes sense to calculate per capita. In absolute terms it would just mirror population figures. Immigrants it can be interesting to see both in absolute terms and per capita... so no big deal either way. Nobel prizes it really doesn't make sense to measure per capita. It's not as if you get a number of Nobel prizes each year based on the total number of smart people in the country. It's just one prize per year in each category, given to someone or someones who have made some notable achievement. It actually makes more sense to measure Olympic medals per capita than Nobel prizes, though a similar argument can be made for Olympic medals it's not quite the same thing.
and since it's only one prize per year... if done per capita you get really bizarre and uninteresting results as seen here. St Lucia? Not exactly known for their great contributions to science. It's monumentally silly to measure this per capita.
Not all science. Derek Walcott was a very good playwright. Died a couple of weeks ago, sadly. If nothing else, he's probably better known in St. Lucia than the great majority of prize winners are in their countries, probably given the pretty incredible thing that St. Lucia actually was home to a winner. In that sense, the per capita thing is quite relevant.
Relevant to the 178k people who live in St Lucia, yes. Relevant to the other 7 billion people in the world? No. You and I both know the only reason why you feel the need to disagree with me on this.
I really don't agree with you on this one @kalbamahut. I think on the contrary it is interesting to have one's attention drawn to the fact that a country like Switzerland for example has a proud record of recognition for its nationals' intellectual achievement, which is something at least in part fostered by its wider culture. Rather than have this pushed down a list by the higher total number awarded to a more populous country such as Great Britain.
I have subsequently had a quick wiki-peek and noticed this: in a list of laureates by country, Marie Curie is counted four times. She won it twice, twice as a Frenchwoman and twice as a Pole. Interesting.
I'm not whining. I'm making a relevant point that you failed to understand.
Fad: you're saying that Switzerland has a stronger record of intellectual achievement than Great Britain? That's, frankly, absurd. It's absurd even before I bring up that, measured per capita, it would seem that Saint Lucia has contributed 6x as much as the UK toward the arts, economics, international diplomacy, and the sciences. And 12x as much as the USA. Move over Kipling, Russell, Eliot, Higgs, Crick, Churchill, Fleming, Bernard Shaw, and Amnesty International! Stop being so uppity, Thorne, Dylan, Obama, Krugman, Carter, Nash, Morrison, Friedman, King, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner, and Roosevelt! Your prizes were clearly just a fluke of demographics and had nothing at all to do with a culture of competitiveness or excellence, or any history of academic, artistic, or scientific achievement.
Make way for some TRUE titans of economics and literature: Kittitians Arthur Lewis and Derek Walcott.
I don't think the results are bizarre or uninteresting; quite the contrary in fact. Honestly I don't see why anyone has a problem with this. There are other featured quizzes that ask about the topic in absolute terms. So what if this one doesn't? If nothing else, one could look at it as a challenge.
There are many metrics, including academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, research output, citations per faculty member, patents or companies generated/started at the university, student performance on standardized tests for graduate school, GPA and standardized test scores for admitted freshmen, graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity (admittance percentage), financial resources, and alumni donation rate.
Obviously it's not a hard science and there is inherent bias in whatever metrics are used, but rankings agree -- USA and UK are clearly #1 and #2. I believe 9 or 10 out of the top 10 universities are all in these 2 countries. UK has the golden triangle and USA has the Ivy League alongside Stanford, Johns Hopkins and MIT.
From 3rd place onwards it becomes less clear. I feel that Switzerland and France have more prestigious schools than Germany and Netherlands. The rankings must be pretty close.
^pretty much right. USA blows away every other country out there, and the UK has a commanding lead over 3rd place though China is rapidly improving. Every other country has very few, relatively, regardless of which list you look at.
This has apparently been changed to "elite" universities. Being familiar with Germany's university system, I'd say there is not a single elite university in the country. At least I associate the word with selectiveness. There are very few private universities in the country, and the public ones can only limit the number of students based on their capacity.
That does not mean there are no good universities, though.
So there are no universities in Germany that are hard to get into because their outstanding reputation leads to them having more applications for enrollment than their capacity would allow?
To me "elite" university means a university with a strong international reputation for producing high-quality research and/or graduates. This... in turn... usually leads to those universities having to become quite selective in whom they enroll. But maybe getting in to a good school in Germany is based on a lottery system or something? I honestly don't know. I know some parts of the Polish education system is like that. Even if so, I don't think that would make the schools less elite, relative to other universities with weaker reputations and less noteworthy output.
"So there are no universities in Germany that are hard to get into because their outstanding reputation leads to them having more applications for enrollment than their capacity would allow?"
No, there are not. There are individual study programs in universities that are hard to get into (like medicine at most German universities). But a lot of programs do not have any restrictions, or very lax restrictions, at the top departments. Take the example of TU München, which has an excellent reputation in a number of engineering subjects. As of now, they have 3 study programs in which they limit the number of applicants, and over 150 in which they don't (though they do reject students that they don't consider qualified).
In computer science, none of the top universities require even an above-average high school degree. There are (teaching-oriented) schools which are more competitive, but those are not the ones with an excellent reputation (which is usually based on excellent research).
Rejecting students that they don't consider qualified... okay... that's what American universities do, too... What's the difference? I mean there are schools in the US, too, that will take basically anyone and everyone. We call them community colleges. They are definitely not considered elite. They don't have a good reputation, so getting in to them is not as competitive. If Harvard accepted every student that applied to the school, it would have to expand the size of its campus 20x over. And if it accepted every student that *wanted* to go there (many simply don't even bother applying, as they know they've got no chance), then they'd have to have a school 100x larger. If it was free to attend on top of that, maybe 1000x larger.
It doesn't seem plausible that the top German schools would be able to accept everyone who wanted to go to them unless there just aren't that many people who want to go to them.
NCs may differ to some extent from uni to uni but the most relevant difference is between the subjects. If you want to study medicine or psychology at a German university, you need excellent grades. Entering sociology or anglistics is far easier regardless of where you apply.
"Rejecting students that they don't consider qualified... okay... that's what American universities do, too... What's the difference?"
Public German universities (and that includes all internationally renowned universities) cannot reject anyone with a German high school diploma, or the equivalent from any EU country, who might have a chance of graduating. The only exception is a lack of teaching capacity, which only happens in a few programs at the research universities. Never for a university as a whole.
"It doesn't seem plausible that the top German schools would be able to accept everyone who wanted to go to them unless there just aren't that many people who want to go to them."
That's my point. However, the research-oriented universities scale relatively well. Learning on your own is part of the idea. In the first few semesters, there might be 1,000 students attending one lecture. That is why teaching-oriented institutions tend to be more competitive despite being less renowned.
Apparently on 2 May 2016 Czechia was finally officially adopted as the short name, i.e. submitted to the United Nations (also Tchéquie in French, Chequia in Spanish and Чехия in Russian, I can't check for Chinese and Arabic.)
Of course, as no country has official authority over foreign languages, you're free to use the long form, only practice will show if it will catch on. Until then Czechia is in the same rank as Timor-Leste, Cabo Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, and also Moldova, the only country that was successful in pushing the native version into English.
We have allways called it Tsjechië in the netherlands, without the republic. I wonder if that was the case in the other countries you ve listed or if it is since czechia changed it.
I really wanted to type USSR for Olympic medals, but I argued with myself that, since it no longer exists, it wouldn't be in the quiz. Score: Me - 1, Myself - 0. Ugh.
What is the source of "Calories Consumed Per Capita"? I would expect that this category correlates with the "average weight". But this is rather not the case, right?
I guess it is simply about food consumed. So that is produced food-export+import. But then you wouldnt know how much food would go to waste.
I think there might be a big difference per country in how much is thrown away. At home, half a plate if unfinished food.. or in supermarkets, stuff that is on their "best before" (which sometimes is still good for months...)
I expect rich countries to be much more wastefull and careless. Though slow but steady there becomes awareness of the millions of pounds of good supermarket food that goes straight to the landfill. Not to mention stupid stuff like not straight cucumbers... (ok I can see there can be made a lot of jokes about that now haha)
Two questions: Does Russia not include any medals ever won by the USSR in its own accomplishments then? Because if they do, then these medals SHOULD be attributed to Russia (but only providing if Russia does, which I'm sure it will be doing).
And if half of the Netherlands is supposed to be technically below sea level (and would be, if it wasn't for their dijks), why hasn't it made the list for countries of minimum altitude?
Netherands elevation: this category is about the single lowest extreme in a country, not average elevation across the entire country. If it was averages... then I think the Maldives, Tuvalu, and Kiribati lead up that list. The Netherlands might be somewhere close to the top, too.
I think the minimum altitude gives a very skewed picture. Because all of these low points are lakes or dead sea. Ofcourse it is gonna be low then. You might be technically right these countries have low points .. ok I ve stopped myself there, I was under the assumption the bottom of the lakes were used, I checked and it at least for Argentina wasnt the case.
still I think minimum average elevation would be more fun/makes more sense. Then you can think about countries that are low. Instead of happening to know 1 specific point some country.
I love the joke about 'Immigrants in the Vatican'.......All citizens of Vatican City are Roman Catholic. The only people allowed to live in the Vatican City are clergy (religious people) and the Swiss Guards who are the Police force of the country. Over 2,400 other people work in the country but they travel in each day from Italy.
I wouldn't call it idiotic... but I have expressed the opinion before that all of the quizzes in this series have far too many categories on them, leading to the result that typing in random countries as fast as you can is a pretty sound strategy. I think they would be better if each quiz was split into 2 or 3 different quizzes.
I have no idea why but I immediately guessed Moldova for alcohol, I've met maybe a couple Moldovan people and I have hardly any knowledge of the culture so not sure where that intuition came from lol
Like many states in the u.s. are bigger than a lot of countries, they ve just "united" them.
Fad: you're saying that Switzerland has a stronger record of intellectual achievement than Great Britain? That's, frankly, absurd. It's absurd even before I bring up that, measured per capita, it would seem that Saint Lucia has contributed 6x as much as the UK toward the arts, economics, international diplomacy, and the sciences. And 12x as much as the USA. Move over Kipling, Russell, Eliot, Higgs, Crick, Churchill, Fleming, Bernard Shaw, and Amnesty International! Stop being so uppity, Thorne, Dylan, Obama, Krugman, Carter, Nash, Morrison, Friedman, King, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner, and Roosevelt! Your prizes were clearly just a fluke of demographics and had nothing at all to do with a culture of competitiveness or excellence, or any history of academic, artistic, or scientific achievement.
Make way for some TRUE titans of economics and literature: Kittitians Arthur Lewis and Derek Walcott.
Obviously it's not a hard science and there is inherent bias in whatever metrics are used, but rankings agree -- USA and UK are clearly #1 and #2. I believe 9 or 10 out of the top 10 universities are all in these 2 countries. UK has the golden triangle and USA has the Ivy League alongside Stanford, Johns Hopkins and MIT.
From 3rd place onwards it becomes less clear. I feel that Switzerland and France have more prestigious schools than Germany and Netherlands. The rankings must be pretty close.
That does not mean there are no good universities, though.
To me "elite" university means a university with a strong international reputation for producing high-quality research and/or graduates. This... in turn... usually leads to those universities having to become quite selective in whom they enroll. But maybe getting in to a good school in Germany is based on a lottery system or something? I honestly don't know. I know some parts of the Polish education system is like that. Even if so, I don't think that would make the schools less elite, relative to other universities with weaker reputations and less noteworthy output.
No, there are not. There are individual study programs in universities that are hard to get into (like medicine at most German universities). But a lot of programs do not have any restrictions, or very lax restrictions, at the top departments. Take the example of TU München, which has an excellent reputation in a number of engineering subjects. As of now, they have 3 study programs in which they limit the number of applicants, and over 150 in which they don't (though they do reject students that they don't consider qualified).
In computer science, none of the top universities require even an above-average high school degree. There are (teaching-oriented) schools which are more competitive, but those are not the ones with an excellent reputation (which is usually based on excellent research).
It doesn't seem plausible that the top German schools would be able to accept everyone who wanted to go to them unless there just aren't that many people who want to go to them.
Public German universities (and that includes all internationally renowned universities) cannot reject anyone with a German high school diploma, or the equivalent from any EU country, who might have a chance of graduating. The only exception is a lack of teaching capacity, which only happens in a few programs at the research universities. Never for a university as a whole.
"It doesn't seem plausible that the top German schools would be able to accept everyone who wanted to go to them unless there just aren't that many people who want to go to them."
That's my point. However, the research-oriented universities scale relatively well. Learning on your own is part of the idea. In the first few semesters, there might be 1,000 students attending one lecture. That is why teaching-oriented institutions tend to be more competitive despite being less renowned.
appearantly this is in absolute numbers and not in percentages..
Of course, as no country has official authority over foreign languages, you're free to use the long form, only practice will show if it will catch on. Until then Czechia is in the same rank as Timor-Leste, Cabo Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, and also Moldova, the only country that was successful in pushing the native version into English.
I think there might be a big difference per country in how much is thrown away. At home, half a plate if unfinished food.. or in supermarkets, stuff that is on their "best before" (which sometimes is still good for months...)
I expect rich countries to be much more wastefull and careless. Though slow but steady there becomes awareness of the millions of pounds of good supermarket food that goes straight to the landfill. Not to mention stupid stuff like not straight cucumbers... (ok I can see there can be made a lot of jokes about that now haha)
And if half of the Netherlands is supposed to be technically below sea level (and would be, if it wasn't for their dijks), why hasn't it made the list for countries of minimum altitude?
Netherands elevation: this category is about the single lowest extreme in a country, not average elevation across the entire country. If it was averages... then I think the Maldives, Tuvalu, and Kiribati lead up that list. The Netherlands might be somewhere close to the top, too.
For international hockey and football (soccer), Russia claims the USSR's previous trophies.
But it seems like the IOC considers them to be two entirely separate entities.
still I think minimum average elevation would be more fun/makes more sense. Then you can think about countries that are low. Instead of happening to know 1 specific point some country.