By Annabel Steele
On Thursday, September 27, the McMullen Museum played host to a fierce competition as teams battled it out over visual culture trivia.
The stage was set with free pizza and drinks out on the third floor terrace. When all of the teams were fed and watered, the showdown began. There were five rounds, each with five questions apiece. Each question had a visual component, testing students’ knowledge even more than the average trivia night. For example, people might be able to name the ten most popular herbs found in the average grocery store—but at visual culture trivia night, they had to name all ten and match them up with the correct photo.
The questions tested students’ knowledge on a range of topics. Categories represented included sports, art, fashion, architecture, marine biology, anatomy and geography, among others. Some questions had only part, while others included multiple components, allowing teams to earn partial points even if they could not correctly answer the entire question. Each question was displayed over a projector, and teams had anywhere from a minute and a half to 10 minutes to write out their answers.
For most of the night, almost all the teams remained locked in tight competition. Eventually, one team of graduate students, English Experts, began to pull away and build a comfortable lead. Even so, by the final question, the scores were so close that it was anyone’s game. In the final question, teams were asked to name national parks and match them to their location on a map of the United States.
In the end, English Experts held on for the first-place finish, earning McMullen t-shirts, umbrellas and catalogues for their win. The second and third place teams also received prizes.